Dr. Salome Guchu

Dr. Salome Guchu is a Principal Officer Research, Innovation and Outreach Research, Innovation and Outreach at the Inter-University Council for East Africa. She is responsible for research and innovation collaboration and partnerships for Regional development, strengthening of Universities and science diplomacy. She was the founding CEO of the Kenya National Innovation Agency, where she set up the Agency by spearheading its operations, developing capacity and initiating key programmes for nurturing Kenyan innovators and support for innovation commercialization.

She is a member of the United Nations 10-member group of Technology Facilitation Mechanism appointed by the UN Secretary General to advise the UN on the ways of harnessing Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. She previously served as a member of UK-Kenya High level Challenge Board on science, technology and innovation; Board of Trustee for National Research Fund and Board of National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation.

Dr. Guchu holds a PhD in Chemistry from University of Nairobi. She has also pursued professional development programmes on policy development and management, strategic leadership and corporate governance.

When not addressing matters related to research and innovation, Dr. Guchu likes to spend time in schools and voluntary programmes for mentoring and encouraging young people, especially girls, not to shy away from pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers.