PhD Candidates
Amani Wangari
Amani Wangari is completing her PhD at the University of Nairobi's Department of Plant Science and Crop Protection, where she maps the genetic architecture of drought tolerance across 480 indigenous Kenyan sorghum landraces. Working under Prof. Ruth Njoroge, she has genotyped the panel using a 50K SNP array and conducted phenotypic measurements — leaf water potential, canopy temperature depression, and harvest index — across two seasons at a Kiboko dryland research station. Her GWAS has identified eleven significant loci, including two novel QTLs not reported in global sorghum reference panels. She is now integrating machine-learning–based genomic prediction models to prioritise breeding candidates, a skill set directly transferable to commercial seed companies and genomic-services providers. Collaboration with CIMMYT Kenya's sorghum breeding programme means her markers are already being evaluated for practical integration into their crossing schemes. Amani's acceptance at the Plant and Animal Genome conference and her active discussions with two East African seed companies about post-PhD roles highlight her proximity to industry.
Details
- Advisor
- Prof. Ruth Njoroge
- Field
- Plant Genomics
- Institution
- University of Nairobi
- Skills
- SNP genotyping arraysGWAS in PLINKrandom forest feature selectionfield phenotyping
- Thesis
- QTL Mapping of Drought-Tolerance Loci in Kenyan Sorghum Landraces Using GWAS and Machine Learning Integration
- Transition Signals
- collaborating with CIMMYT Kenya on breeding pipelineabstract accepted at PAG 2027interest in agri-genomics industry role