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Enoch Wembabazi

Mr. Wembabazi was raised in a subsistence farming family in the rural areas of Masindi, Western Uganda. At an early age, he came face to face with the ugly side of famine which threatened the existence of many households in his home area of Masindi.  After graduating with a B.Sc in Conservation Biology in 2011 from Makerere University, he volunteered at the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) where he worked with cassava breeders on phenotyping for root traits. He later enrolled for a Master of Science in Biochemistry at Makerere University where he sponsored himself for the entire duration of the course. For his MSc research, he developed heterogeneous biocatalysts for converting waste vegetable oil into biodiesel fuel and crude glycerin for improving combustion efficiency of bio-briquettes. Upon completion, he got appointed as a Research Assistant at NaCRRI, working on phenotyping provitamin A cassava clones for quality traits, under the NextGen breeding Project. It is during this time that he got introduced to the concept of high throughput phenotyping using novel technologies like Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). He also got hands on training in Bio-physics at the Abdus Salam Centre of Theoretical physics, Trieste, Italy. To have a better understanding of the genetics that influence root traits, he embarked on finding a PhD that would further his understanding on breeding and genetics. Following a tip off from an aluminus of WACCI (PhD Cohort 7) about the quality of Plant Breeding Program at WACCI, Mr. Wembabazi applied and by God’s grace got selected for the fellowship, under the NextGen Breeding Project (Phase 2). He then enrolled in 2019 for a PhD in Plant Breeding at WACCI, University of Ghana. He purposes to integrate high throughput methods in the selection for farmer preferred traits in cassava, and eventually use this to develop lines that meet farmer’s needs.