Meklit Tariku Chernet, an Ethiopian, is a data scientist with expertise in agronomy, design of experiments, statistics, database management and developing web based tools. Prior to joining IITA-Kenya as a Postdoctoral fellow, she had been working at universities and research companies in Ethiopia and Belgium. She has BSc in plant sciences from Alemaya University, Ethiopia where she also worked for two years teaching and coordinating a participatory plant breeding research program. As a researcher, she was responsible for designing and conducting field experiments which triggered her interest in statistical computing and providing digital solutions for data visualization. During her M.Sc and PhD studies at Gent University, Belgium, Meklit specialized in spatial statistics, GIS and Remote Sensing techniques. After her PhD, she had been working for BASF research company as data analyst being responsible for maintaining and improving SQL database, computer programming for statistical analysis, build a st andardized and automated analytical tools and provide interactive web based tools for data visualization and reporting. Before she left BASF, she has been leading a team of statisticians and proved to be capable of priority setting, resource planning and making clear agreements with several stake holders.
Location: Kenya
Arega Alene is an agricultural economist IITA based in Malawi and leads research programs on impact evaluation and strategic analysis of R&D investments and priorities. He started his career in 1992 at Alemaya University of Agriculture in Ethiopia as a lecturer in agricultural economics upon earning his B.Sc. in agricultural economics (with distinction) from the same university. Arega joined IITA in October 2003 as a postdoctoral fellow with the impact, policy, and systems analysis program. He has published over 40 research papers, with over 30 of these in peer-reviewed journals, namely, Agricultural Economics, Food Policy, World Development, Empirical Economics, Journal of African Economies, Journal of Developing Areas, Agricultural Systems, Agricultural Economics Review, Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, Outlook on Agriculture, Journal of Agricultural and Food Economics, and South African Journal of Agricultural Economics. An Ethiopian national, Dr Alene holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. His research interests include R&D impact evaluation, productivity analysis, agricultural policy, and international development.
Bernard Vanlauwe joined IITA in Kenya in March 2012 to lead the Central Africa hub and the Natural Resource Management research area. In this capacity, he is also having an oversight role in the Consortium Research Programs (CRP) on Humidtropics; the Water, L and, and Ecosystems; and CCAFS.
Prior to this appointment, he was the leader of the Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) program of the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility research area of CIAT (TSBF). He joined CIAT-TSBF in 2001 and led the development, adaptation, and dissemination of best ISFM options in various agroecological zones in sub-Saharan Africa. In September 2010, he obtained a Visiting Professor position at the Swedish Agricultural University in Uppsala in the Soils and Environment Department.
He had also worked at IITA in Nigeria (1991 – 2000) and the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium (1989-1991), focusing on unraveling the mechanisms underlying nutrient and soil organic matter dynamics in tropical agroecosystems. In that context, he obtained his PhD in 1996 in Applied Biological Sciences. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and over 120 in other forms and has (co-) supervised over 30 MSc and 10 PhD students.
Dr. Leena Tripathi is the Director of Eastern Africa Hub and Leader of the Biotechnology Program at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), a member of One CGIAR. She is leading the transgenic and gene-editing research at IITA. She has been involved in plant biotechnology research for more than 25 years, with specific interests in crop improvement. She focuses on “Science to Practice” and linking scientific innovations to practical applications to solve food production issues worldwide. Her primary research focuses on genetically improving important staple food crops like banana/plantain, cassava, and yam to control diseases and pests. Her scientific contributions have been recognized internationally through several awards and honors, such as excellence awards for outstanding scientist and publications. She has been honored as an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for her contributions to Agriculture.
Dr. Tripathi and her team have established a robust genetic transformation platform at IITA-Kenya, to develop transgenic and gene-edited products and transfer these technologies to national agricultural research systems in sub-Saharan Africa. She collaborates globally with advanced labs in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia, as well as with national partners in Africa, and various regional partners. She serves as Editorial Board Member for Plant Biotechnology Journal, Communication Biology, Frontiers in Genome Editing, Scientific Reports, and Plant Cell Reports. Leena obtained her Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Biology and M.Sc. in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. She worked at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro before joining IITA.
Trushar Shah is the Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) Hub Manager. He is a Kenyan national. He graduated from the University of Bristol, UK, with an honors degree in biochemistry, molecular biology, and biotechnology. He holds an MSc in molecular modeling and bioinformatics from Birkbeck, University of London.
Before joining IITA, he was a Scientist (Bioinformatics) and Coordinator, Data Management Unit at ICRISAT. He also worked as Bioinformatics Specialist & Computational Biology (2007–2009) at CIMMYT on the analysis of gene expression, association mapping, marker and genomic data.
Morag Ferguson is a Scientist working in Crop Genetics and Molecular Breeding at IITA, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She works mainly with cassava and more specifically on host plant resistance or tolerance to biotic stresses, particularly cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) and cassava mosaic disease (CMD). She has also worked on a number of other IITA crops including bananas, cowpea and yam.
Morag obtained her PhD in Conservation Genetics from the University of Birmingham, UK, while based at the International Centre for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Aleppo, Syria. She has had postdoctoral stays at the University of Southampton (UK), ICARDA (Arabian Peninsula) and ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India, with some time spent at the University of Georgia (USA), before joining IITA in Nairobi in 2002.
Over the past few years Morag has been working to find molecular markers associated with resistance/tolerance to CBSD, but also keeps up her interest in genetic diversity, studying diversity in cassava in South, East and Central Africa and in East African Highl and Banana. She has supervised several MSc, PhD and Post-doctoral students. She works closely with the National Agriculture Research programs in both Tanzania and Ug anda, with DSMZ in Germany and UC Berkeley, Dow AgroSciences and Cornell University in USA.
Danny Coyne has worked in tropical agriculture since 1989, beginning as a village extension office in rural Tanzania. He has spent most of his working life traversing Africa, working at both the national program and international research institute levels. With specialization in nematology, he is one of few nematologists in Africa. Of late he has broadened into the wider field of soil health in relation to plant host-pest-antagonist relations and the ecological aspects. Training underscores all of his work, whether at the farmer, technician, or academic level.
Theresa Ampadu-Boakye, from Ghana, is the N2Africa Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist. She holds an MSc degree in Development Planning and Management, a joint postgraduate program between the University of Dortmund and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana.
Prior to this appointment, she was the Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for 2SCALE Project of the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and Technical Advisor / Senior Technical Advisor (2005-2012) with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ)-funded Market Oriented Agriculture Programme (MOAP) which was implemented in Ghana in partnership with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA). She designed and implemented monitoring and evaluation systems for both the GIZ-funded MOAP project and 2SCALE.
