Reputable Kenyan born Harvard professor, Calestous Juma is dead.
The 64-year old professor who is an authority in science and technology died on Friday; barely a week after his mother was buried, reports the Star.
He was born in the shores of Lake Victoria where he obtained early education. He later become an elementary school teacher.
Juma according to Wikipedia is internationally recognized in the application of science and technology to sustainable development worldwide.
The New African magazine named him among the most influential 100 Africans in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Juma was also a pioneer African Science and Environmental journalists with Daily Nation newspaper.
At Harvard, he was the professor of the practice of International Development.
He was the faculty chair of the Innovation for Economic Development Executive Program at Harvard Kennedy School besides being the school’s director of the school’s Science, Technology and Globalization project.
He contributed to Africa’s agricultural sphere by heading the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
He is an author of several books with his latest, The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa being published by Oxford University Press between 2011 and 2013.
Other prestigious institutions he has served in recognition of his outstanding work include: Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the African Academy of Sciences and the New York Academy of Sciences.
He is the founder of the Nairobi-based Environment Liaison Centre International trilingual quarterly magazine, Ecoforum.
He graduated with an MSc in Science, Technology and Industrialization and a DPhil in Science and Technology Policy from the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex.