About This Event
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Charles E. Lindley Lecture Series
Dr. Esther NgumbiUniversity of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign
In Pursuit of Zero Hunger: Progress, Setbacks, and Opportunities
Dr. Esther Ngumbi was born in a rural farming community along the Kenyan Coast. Education for girls was considered unimportant and there were no societal role models to inspire girls to reach for the stars. Her parents were teachers and struggled and sacrificed to raise enough money to pay for their children’s school fees, often going hungry themselves to support Esther and her siblings. This had a powerful effect on her and inspired her to pursue her academic career goals and persevere against challenges however daunting they seemed. She attained a B.S. and M.S. at Kenyatta University, followed by a Ph.D. in Entomology from Auburn University. Dr. Ngumbi is currently a distinguished post-doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She has received three U.S. patents for her research directed at basic and applied aspects of using microbial inoculants to promote growth and enhance tolerance to drought stress in multiple crops. She is a Food Security Fellow with The Aspen Institute New Voices, and has penned scores of articles for newspapers and online outlets like CNN, Scientific American, Time Magazine, NPR, Aljazeera, Los Angeles Times, SciDev. Net and World Policy Institute. In 2012 she founded “Spring Break Kenya”, an organization that mobilizes young university students into public service, and with her parents co-founded the Dr. Ndumi Faulu Academy to ensure that all children in Kenya can have a quality education. She has also served as a mentor for girls and African students through President Obama’s Young African Leadership program, The Clinton Global University Initiative, and through many other organization affiliations. She is an advisory mentor to organizations including Soil4Climate and Development in Gardening. Dr. Ngumbi was also inducted into the National Academy of Inventors, she received the 2017 Women of Courage Award, the 2018 Society of Experimental Biology Presidents Medal, and was named by One World as one of 100 powerful women who change the world.