
Duty Station: Nigeria
Esther Uchendu, a Nigerian/Canadian, is the Genetic Resources Scientist for Clonally Propagated Crops at the IITA Genetic Resources Center in Ibadan, Nigeria. She earned a B.Sc. Honours degree in Botany (1995) and M.Sc. in Microbiology (2000), both from the University of Ibadan and a Ph.D. with specialization in plant tissue culture and cryopreservation from the Department of Horticulture, Oregon State University, USA (2010). She did her Postdoc at the Department of Plant Agriculture/Gosling Research Institute for Plant Preservation (GRIPP), University of Guelph, ON, Canada (2010-2011). She did a second Postdoc at the National Center for Natural Products Research, University of Mississippi where she focused on the in vitro gene banking and cryobanking of Cannabis sativa (2016-2017).
She is an expert in the tissue culture of clonal crops including yam, cassava, potato, plantain, and banana. Her career in science and agriculture started during her earlier years as a staff of IITA-Ibadan (1995-2004). Prior to re-joining IITA as IRS, she was an Associate Professor at the Department of Crops and Horticultural Sciences, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
She has mentored many students, sometimes in collaboration with IITA for PhD, M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees since joining the University of Ibadan in 2013. She is currently a member of the Constitution and Bylaws Committee of the Society of In Vitro Biology (SIVB).
She was the 2018 Young Scientist Award recipient from the SIVB. She is also an alumni of the Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program in Nigeria, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship (IPS), etc. She received Visiting Scientist award from the TWAS-DFG cooperative visits program for collaboration with the Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plants Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Germany (2015), and Universite Felix Houphouet- Boigny, Pole Scientifique et D’ Innovation in Bingerville, Cote D’ Ivoire (2022).
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