As the oldest of four children,\u00a0Catherine Nkirote Kunyanga felt driven at a young age to excel in school as a way to pull her family out of poverty. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, her father worked in the private sector for years but then lost his job, while her mother stayed home. After primary school, Kunyanga moved to rural Meru County to attend high school, where she ranked top of the class for every subject and was the first female student to ever earn grade A in the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur parents were very keen on us going to school, and being a firstborn, I knew that education was the only way I could help my family,\u201d she said. Kunyanga returned to the capital after being accepted to the prestigious\u00a0University of Nairobi<\/a>, where she completed her bachelor\u2019s, master\u2019s and Ph.D. degrees in food science and technology.<\/p>\n Today, having climbed the academic ranks to become one of the preeminent female scientists in Kenya, she goes back to Meru County to mentor students at her alma mater \u2014 young girls, in particular \u2014 to show them what is possible. Upon receiving her Ph.D., Kunyanga was offered a position as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi. She currently serves as associate professor in the\u00a0Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Technology<\/a>\u00a0and associate dean of the\u00a0Faculty of Agriculture<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Nairobi.<\/p>\n With her first year\u2019s salary, she was able to build a house for her parents in their village. \u201cI owe my success to them. If they had not pushed me, I would not be where I am,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her research focuses on highlighting the health characteristics of Indigenous food crops, linking them to better nutrition and health outcomes in vulnerable populations in Kenya. Recent studies have investigated the value of\u00a0supplementing cultured milk products with baobab fruit pulp<\/a>, perceptions of\u00a0genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and antibiotics in livestock production<\/a>, and formulation of\u00a0a\u00a0ready-to-eat snack bar<\/a>\u00a0made with sorghum, sesame and baobab fruit pulp powder.<\/p>\n She is also passionate about implementing systems-based, risk-informed approaches to food safety in her home country, where food and nutrition insecurity is still a major challenge. Severe droughts throughout the last decade have led to\u00a0more than double the number of food-insecure people<\/a>\u00a0in Kenya, from 1.3 million to 2.7 million.<\/p>\n \u201cFor many years, our focus has been just food security, without people realizing you cannot be food-secure if the food you are eating is not safe,\u201d said Kunyanga. \u201cPeople never cared about what food they ate, what it contains, whether it\u2019s safe or not. As the food security coordinator, I have championed a number of projects toward zero hunger and zero poverty in Kenya, in collaboration with both local and international partner institutions. As a university also, we had a number of interventions to sensitize people around food safety.\u201d<\/p>\n Her laboratory is working on several projects looking at foodborne pathogens, heavy metals and pesticides. With Dr. Robert Onsare, senior research scientist at the\u00a0Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)<\/a>, Kunyanga is leading\u00a0a project\u00a0funded by the\u00a0Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety<\/a>\u00a0to improve food security and nutrition in Kenya by targeting the poultry value chain. Poultry is an important dietary component for poor and middle-class Kenyan households, but the transmission of pathogenic Salmonella and Campylobacter bacteria presents a significant risk of foodborne disease. Unlike larger livestock like cattle, sheep and goats, handled mostly by men, poultry is often produced and processed in informal settings by women and youth.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are looking at risk-based approaches in control of Salmonella and Campylobacter in the poultry value chain in Kiambu County, which supplies to Nairobi,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping the intervention that we plan to do will help these women and youth run a profitable business through safe production and sale of high-quality poultry meat and meat products.\u201d<\/p>\n The research focuses on women and youth who, due to their direct involvement in poultry handling and production, are likely at higher risk of exposure to foodborne pathogens. Despite being the owners and caretakers of chickens, women may not have the power to make decisions about money or access to resources to increase food safety.<\/p>\n Next, the researchers plan to empower youth and women through educational workshops and skill trainings that build food microbiology expertise. The project sponsors two master\u2019s students and one Ph.D. student who assist Kunyanga with surveying households and farms, analyzing data and strategizing ways to increase engagement.<\/p>\n Outside of her academic pursuits, Kunyanga is proud to be a mother to two daughters. Her first was born three days after taking a final exam in the fourth year of her bachelor\u2019s degree. \u201cAnd during my master\u2019s, I had my second daughter \u2014 so, two daughters, two degrees\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n In the future, she hopes to lead a regulatory agency or hold another such role in government in order to make decisions that directly affect the adoption of interventions and technologies to address food safety and other agricultural issues.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m not tired,\u201d Kunyanga emphasizes. \u201cAs a country, we are still struggling with food insecurity, so I hope to contribute in a big way during my lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n Meeri Kim is a freelance writer with the\u00a0<\/em>Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL)<\/em><\/a>. The lab is one of more than 20\u00a0<\/em>Innovation Labs<\/em>\u00a0with U.S. universities under\u00a0<\/em>Feed the Future<\/em>, the U.S. government\u2019s global hunger and food security initiative led by\u00a0<\/em>USAID<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the oldest of four children,\u00a0Catherine Nkirote Kunyanga felt driven at a young age to excel in school as a way to pull her family out of poverty. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, her father worked in the private sector for years but then lost his job, while her mother stayed home. After primary school, Kunyanga […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-profile"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1604"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2481,"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604\/revisions\/2481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/food-safety-innovation-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}