Affiliateship: 2020-2024
Cohort 5
Country (Nationality)
Zambia
Discipline
Agricultural & Nutritional Sciences
Bio
Dr Felicitas Esnart Mukumbo is the Poultry and Swine Enterprise Lead at the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA); a role with the three-fold mission of teaching using the experiential education approach, extension work and applied research. Prior to this, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Fort Hare (UFH) in South Africa, funded by the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security. She completed her PhD and MSc at UFH, on scholarships from South Africa’s National Research Foundation and the UK-based Canon Collins Trust; her BSc at the University of Namibia and secondary school in her home country Zambia.
Her research interests traverse both ends of the livestock production chain from the farm-to-fork including sustainable animal production practises, the development of functional meat products using bioactive compounds of natural origin, and the implications of both on the future of agriculture and food security. Felicitas is a recipient of the South African Society for Animal Science Bronze Medal in the Research Category, the African Women for Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) Fellowship and she has co-guest edited a special issue of the journal Food Research International. She has presented and published her work in internationally renowned conferences and journals respectively, and through industry commissioned reviews and magazine articles.
Felicitas is passionate about the roles that sustainable agriculture, science and communication can play in mitigating global challenges, protecting the environment and improving the lives of many. She strives to contribute to these goals through her work and research.