Dr. Olakunle Sansa is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Genetic Resources Center (GRC), IITA. His work focuses on improving photosynthesis and breeding for climate resilience in cowpea. Dr. Sansa specializes in pre-breeding, breeding, trait discovery and genomics-assisted breeding methods to enhance the development of new cowpea varieties for a rapidly changing climate in sub-Saharan Africa.

He holds a Bachelor of Agriculture degree in Plant breeding and Seed Technology, Masters of Agriculture and PhD in Plant Breeding from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria.

Dr. Sansa first joined the GRC as a doctoral research fellow in 2020 and in 2021, he won the UK/FCDO Commonwealth Split-site PhD Scholarship to conduct part of his PhD research at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, U.K. Following the completion of his PhD, he joined John Innes Center, UK as a visiting researcher. Dr. Sansa is currently a recipient of research grants from Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA fund and MasterCard Foundation serving as the Africa Principal Investigator. His current project funded by Gates AgOne seeks to improve photosynthesis and also boost resilience and productivity in cowpea for sustainable food production and improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers in Africa.