Professor Calestous Juma is an internationally recognized authority on the application of science and technology to sustainable development. He is Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He directs the school’s Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Calestous sits on the selection jury of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and co-chairs the African Union’s High Level Panel on Science, Technology and Innovation. After receiving his DPhil in science and technology policy studies in the UK, he founded the African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi, the continent’s first independent think tank on innovation. He is a former executive director of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, former Chancellor of the University of Guyana and has been a member of the governing boards of leading international organisations working on sustainable development.
A Kenyan national, Calestous has been elected to several prestigious academies including the Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), the UK Royal Academy of Engineering and the African Academy of Sciences. He has received numerous international awards and honorary degrees.