Mercy Kitavi
I hold a PhD in plant genetics from the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG). My research focused on genetic diversity and epigenetic polymorphism behind the phenotypically diverse East African Highland bananas and unearthing their evolutionary history. Currently, I am a molecular breeder and capacity building scientist focusing on the use of genomics and marker assisted breeding for accelerating sweetpotato improvement. Supporting and building molecular capacity of sweetpotato breeders in Sub-Saharan Africa through training workshops, webinars and online tutorials. I am interested in :- Integrated genomics assisted crop breeding, application of new and modern technologies to enhance collection of phenotypic data, evolution of genomes, epigenomes and populations, studying the limpacts of in vitro technologies to plant diseases, role of epigenetics in expression of genes for important traits for, increasing the impact of plant research to meet global challenges.