AAS sadly announces the passing of Prof Laban Ogallo

Prof. Ogallo obtained B.Sc (Hons), M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in meteorology from the University of Nairobi. His main research areas of interest included climate change, climate modelling, prediction, early warning and applications for addressing climate change and integrated disaster risk reduction challenges. Prof. Ogallo was elected Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) in 1995.

Prof Ogallo’s academic life evolved at the Department of Meteorology University of Nairobi, where he grew from a tutorial fellow in 1975 to a full professor. He was on leave of absence from the University between 1994-2019. He was seconded to the government as the Secretary /CEO of Kenya National Council for Science and Technology before joining the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) between 1996-1999.  He joined UN regional drought monitoring center in Nairobi (DMCN) in 2000 as a project coordinator. DMCN grew under him to become Africa’s Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC). ICPAC is an IGAD Centre for climate prediction and early warning in support of disaster risk reduction, environment management and sustainable development efforts for 11 countries in the Greater Horn of Africa. Prof Ogallo was the Founding Director and managed drought monitoring center in Africa (DMCA) upto 2015.  Prof Ogallo also coordinated an IGAD-UNDP project for building capacity for regional disaster resilience between 2015-2018. He returned to the Department of Meteorology University of Nairobi in 2019, and retired in January 2020.

Prof Ogallo served in various capacities at Global, Regional and National levels. He has been a contributor to climate change assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change (IPCC), and a member of the IPCC team of scientists who received the Nobel Prize Award in 2007. He is a Member of the (i) WMO Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), (ii)  Member Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) for Climate Research for Development (CR4D) a partnership of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS); (iii) Co-Chair of the Solar Radiation Management (SMR) Governance Initiative (SRMGI) committee, founded in 2010 by the Royal Society, The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) for getting developing countries into the conversation about SRM and research, etc.

Prof Ogallo was also a fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Kenya National Academy of Sciences (KNAS), Kenya Meteorological Society among many others. He supervised and examined a large number of MSc and PhD students all over the world and published widely in many professional journals and books.

May His Soul Rest in Eternal Peace!