Nationally recruited staff (NRS) appointment—Nairobi

Geoffrey Muiruri joined International Livestock Research Institution (ILRI) in October as program accountant. He was formerly working at Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development which is a policy research institute owned by Egerton University, where he served as the Project Accountant. In his career, he has supported organisations to set up strong internal control systems, create and maintain project financial databases, provide financial information to program leaders/managers and ensure overall compliance to donor regulations. He has vast experience managing donors’ funds such as USAID, Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and World Bank.

Geoffrey holds a B. Com (Finance and Accounting) from Strathmore University, a Certified Public Accountant, CPA (K) and is a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK).

Gordon Mavisi joined ILRI as driver based in the Nairobi county in the Accelerated value chain development (AVCD) program effective October 2017. With over 20 Years’ experience in commercial driving, Gordon was previously working with US Embassy Defense Attaché office, Shreeji Enterprises, Alpine Coolers, African Line Transport and Logistics and Info track Research and Logistics. He is a recipient of Federal Bureau of Investigation Coin (FBI) and Eagle award Certificates.

He holds certificates in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, Basic First Aid, Defensive driving, Basic vehicle mechanics.

Hussein Omar Ibrahim was appointed as driver in AVCD program based in Wajir county. Born to a pastoralist family in northern Kenya, Hussein obtained his Certificate of Secondary Education in Wajir the attained his driving licence. He has previously worked as an institutional driver at the Shibli Integrated Academy, a private primary school and later served as a casual driver for the AVCD program. He has also worked as an enumerator for the Islamic Relief, as polling clerk during the 2005 constitutional referendum of Kenya.

 

Peter Lopem was appointed as driver in AVCD program based in Turkana county. He has experience working in various Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs) in and outside

Turkana County. He holds He holds certificates in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, Driving Basic Tyre maintenance and defensive

 

Jillo Woche joined ILRI as a driver based in Marsabit county, in the AVCD program.  He has vast experience within Marsabit county and its environs. He holds certificates in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education and driving.

 

Queenreese Oluoch was appointed as Animal Technician-Large Animal Unit effective November 2017. Prior to this, he was working at the University of Nairobi, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences and at Jesmo Agrovet Limited- Kajiado

He holds a Diploma in Management-Purchasing and Supply Management from Kenya Institute of Management, Certificates in Animal Health and Production; Artificial Insemination and Fertility Management from -AHITI and Certificate in Information Communication Technology Enabled Services-Business Process Outsourcing (ITES-BPO) from University of Nairobi.

He is a registered Veterinary technician with Kenya Veterinary Board (KVB) and a Member of Kenya Veterinary Paraprofessional Association (KVPA)

Dorothy Onyango joined the ILRI-BecA Hub as capacity building research associate in November 2017. Her role is to provide high-level, comprehensive technical support and bench supervision to scientists and research fellows conducting a wide range of crop and livestock-related research projects, support research fellows and scientists in stock management and requisition of reagents, supplies and equipment. Dorothy is a Plant Geneticist/Breeder with 5 years research experience in different research organizations including International Rice Research Institute in The Philippines, where she worked in collaboration with Africa Rice to develop high yielding iron toxicity tolerant rice hybrids for cultivation in lowland areas of Africa and South East Asia. Previously, Dorothy worked as a corn breeder with Pioneer in developing highland maize hybrids for Kenya and with International Potato Center in improving production systems of farmers in western Kenya under Humid tropics.

Mercy Chepngetich was appointed as research associate – statistics under BecA-ILRI Hub’s Integrated Genotyping Service and Support (IGSS) platform. Her key role is to analyze and interpret statistical data derived from IGSS platform and use DArTdb LIMS for efficient data management.

Mercy also interacts with IGSS clients and contributes in providing technical backstopping in statistical data analysis and interpretation, maintaining quality controls of the IGSS data, managing work-plans, planning work conducted by IGSS research associates in dry lab supervision of IGSS activities in the platform. Prior to joining the BecA-ILRI Hub, Mercy worked at Jomo Kenyatta university of Agriculture & Technology (J.K.U.A.T) and Machakos University as a part-time Lecturer in the department of Statistics and Actuarial science. She holds a MSc degree in Applied Statistics and BSc. in Mathematics and Computer Science from J.K.U.A.T She also went through a rigorous seven months training in DArTseq GBS Technology at DArT in Canberra, Australia.

Elijah Mwaura joined the BecA-ILRI Hub as the program accountant effective December 2017. Prior to joining BecA, Elijah served as an Accountant supporting BecA-ILRI-hub and Biosciences program within the Finance department.  He has over six years’ experience in finance and accounting and holds a B. Com degree in Finance and Banking from Egerton University. He is a Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK)  

 

Nationally recruited staff (NRS) appointment—Addis Ababa

 Meron Ameha was appointed as Zebu Club coordinator in Housing, Catering and Conference Services unit effective November 2017.  Meron holds BA degree in Marketing management from Unity University and Diploma in Marketing and Salesmanship from Unity University College. Prior to joining ILRI, she was working as Recreation Manager at Hilton Hotel Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

 

 

Menilik Chanyalew moved to Feed and Forage Development Program as program accountant effective November 2017.  Menilik holds MSc degree in Accounting and Finance from Addis Ababa University and BA degree in Accounting from Addis Ababa University. Prior to this appointment, he was working as Accountant in ILRI’s Finance department.

 

 

Rahel Abiy was appointed as administrative assistant in Sustainable Livestock Systems Program effective November 2017.  Rahel holds BA degree in Foreign Languages and Literature from Addis Ababa University. Prior to this, she was working on temporary basis as Administrative Assistant in ILRI.

 

 

 Ermias Habte has been appointed research officer in Feed and Forage Development Program effective December 2017. Ermias holds PhD degree in Plant Genetics from Cologne University, Germany, MSc degree in Plant Breeding from Alemaya University and BSc degree in Plant Science from Hawassa University.   Previously, he was working as Research and Community Service Vice Dean at Ambo University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences.

 

Betreab Solomon was appointed as ICT customer services technician in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) effective December. Betreab holds BSc degree in Computer Sciences from HilCoE School of Computer Science and Technology. Before joining ILRI, he was working as Information Technology Support at British Embassy.

 

 

Internationally recruited staff (IRS) appointments

Perle Latre de Late was appointed as a Postdoctoral fellow-cell biologist in the Livestock Genetics program, Animal Biosciences in September 2017. Her role is to conduct research on cattle disease, East Cost Fever disease. Currently the aim of her study is to determine the mechanism of tolerance to T Parva in cattle, understanding the mechanism of tolerance that may reveal new insights into how best to control or prevent East Coast fever.

A French citizen, originally from Gabon, Perle studied in France obtaining her PhD in molecular and cellular biology, MSc (2) in Biology and therapeutic of functions from the University of Paris XI and BSc and MSc (1) in cell biology and physiology from University of sciences and technologies of Lille.

Jean-Baka Entfellner was appointed as scientist – bioinformatics in the BecA-ILRI Hub in September 2017, to lead the bioinformatics platform. He is responsible for providing expertise to scientists and fellows in the computational analysis of their “omics” data (phenotypic or genomic) as well as designing and implementing capacity building activities in bioinformatics.

Prior to this appointment, Entfellner was a senior lecturer in Computer Science at the university of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa), and a postdoctoral fellow with the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI) since 2012. As a postdoctoral fellow, Jean-Baka worked for the NIH-funded H3ABioNet project, part of the broader H3Africa initiative (Human Heredity and Health in Africa).

With a formal education in computer science, mathematics and signal processing, Jean-Baka took a one-year sabbatical in 2006-2007 to lecture in Niamey (Niger) and Yaoundé (Cameroon), in the framework, a project aimed at developing higher education and research capacity in mathematics and computer science in Africa. Back in France, he conducted his PhD studies in Montpellier under the supervision of Prof. Olivier Gascuel, on a topic combining phylogenetics and statistical modelling of protein families.

He is also the bioinformatician for the DTRA/CBEP project on the whole-genome sequencing of African Swine Fever Virus.

Originally from Paris, France, Jean-Baka is an alumnus of the prestigious École Normale Supérieure (ENS Cachan, France). Prior to his PhD (University of Montpellier, France), he obtained a BSc and an MSc in computer science from the University of Rennes (France) and a BA in English studies from the University of Rennes (France), and an MA in English studies from the University of Montpellier (France).

Anna Lacasta-Marin was promoted to scientist in the Animal and Human Health program, Animal Biosciences. She was previously a Post-doctoral fellow in the Vaccines Platform since October 2013, during which she was involved in development of subunit vaccines against East Coast fever where she developed new vaccine approaches based on the p67C antigen, implemented new nanotechnology designs and as a result improved the antigen making it more efficient in generating an immune response. This technology can now be applied with other antigens to fight other diseases. Anna was also involved in the development of vaccines against African swine fever by means of attenuated viruses. Both diseases are major constraints in Africa and Anna’s efforts in the vaccinology field were very helpful in both cases. In the new position Anna is going to continue working in the vaccinology field and opening new avenues for collaborations and synergies.

Kristina Roesel was appointed as postdoctoral fellow, Animal and Human Health.  She initially joined ILRI in 2011 as a graduate fellow during the final synthesis activities of the BMZ/GIZ funded, ILRI-led Safe Food, Fair Food project. For the period 2012 – 2016 she was jointly appointed by Freie Universität Berlin and ILRI as the coordinator of the second phase of the Safe Food, Fair Food project. Kristina is a German citizen and holds a DVM and a PhD of Biomedical Sciences of Freie Universität Berlin. Prior to her veterinary studies, she obtained a degree as a foreign language correspondent and volunteered in a forest conservation project in Malawi using participatory methods in tackling the human-elephant conflict. Until today she is active in African elephant habitat conservation in Malawi and Kenya. As a student she worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Parasitology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine at FUB, supporting field work on emerging tropical vector-borne livestock diseases in Europe and parasitological surveys in West Africa. Particular interests include research on the epidemiology of diseases at the interface of livestock, wildlife and human health, parasitology, working with students well as North-South and South-South technology and knowledge transfer.

 Sonal Henson joined ILRI as scientist–bioinformatics in December 2017. She will be responsible for developing data analysis strategies relevant to gene discovery, immuno-informatics and genotyping for Animal and Human Health research program. She has over 10 years of experience in a range of bioinformatics areas. She holds a PhD in Bioinformatics from University of Pretoria, South Africa, BSc. in Computational Biology from University of Warwick, UK, an MSc. in Bioinformatics from University of Leicester, UK. She was a Postdoctoral research fellow at ILRI, KEMRI-Welcome Trust and ICIPE, studying the genomes of various organisms using high throughput sequencing data.

Peter Emmrich was appointed as postdoctoral scientist at the BecA-ILRI Hub in December 2017. He is working on the improvement of Grass pea for food security in Sub-Saharan Africa which is a highly drought- and flooding-tolerant pulse crop  cultivated widely in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Bangladesh and India and has been part of human diets for over 8000 years. However, the crop produces a toxin, beta-ODAP, that can cause paralysis after prolonged consumption during times of malnutrition. Peter’s work aims to develop safe, high-yielding and locally adapted varieties of grass pea for food and feed. This work follows on from Peter’s PhD and one-year Post-doctoral studies at the John Innes Centre in the UK, a strategic partner of BecA-ILRI.

Peter is originally from Leipzig in Germany, but moved to Cambridge, UK for university. Besides his scientific work, Peter is a co-founder of the medical development NGO Doctors for Madagascar and a trustee of the UK branch.