OUR FELLOWS
As a young woman, Grace Nakabonge dreamed of becoming a medical doctor, but revised her goal to focus on forest pathology—a passion that sprung from a part-time job assisting a forestry professor with data entry during her BSc studies at Makerere University. A visiting professor from South Africa also contributed to Nakabonge’s newfound ambition to excel and earn the honors required to do a master’s degree at the renowned Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria. After Nakabonge graduated with distinction, she won a PhD scholarship at FABI, where she completed her doctorate in 2006.
In 2009 I won a research grant from the Makerere Carnegie Institutional Development Program,” Nakabonge recalls. “This allowed me to pursue research on wild forestry species and especially the shea butter tree, Vitelleria paradoxa, to establish how this tree could be domesticated.
Field of Research
Use of molecular techniques in sustainable management and conservation of plant genetic resources.