Professor Ngumbi performs cutting edge research on pest- and drought-resistant crops, with her work driven by her concerns for vulnerable farmers who live in countries lacking social safety nets, where one season of crop devastation due to insects can mean going hungry and being unable to pay for their children’s education. She has strongly focused on communicating the science in her work to widespread audiences in order to effect real international impact, having penned bylines in The New York Times, Al Jazeera, Time magazine and NPR, with the goal of making her science as publicly available as possible.
Additionally, Professor Ngumbi is engaged in the global community through a variety of initiatives. In 2012 she founded Spring Break Kenya, an organization that mobilizes young university students into public service, and she and her parents co-founded The Dr. Ndumi Faulu Academy in early 2012 to ensure that all children in Kenya can have a quality education. In 2014, she founded Oyeska Greens, an agriculture-focused start-up that empowers farmers at the Kenyan Coast.
Professor Ngumbi is an author, researcher, educator, mentor, speaker and a champion for change around the issues of hunger, gender, education, youth activism, agriculture, sustainability, and public service. As the founder of organizations that empower farmers and youth in Kenya, she’s served as a mentor for entities like the Clinton Global University Initiative and President Obama’s Young Leadership Program. Her research is concerned with understanding the multifaceted uses of chemical signals (both volatile and non-volatile) by herbivores, natural enemies, plants and their associated microorganisms and insects; she has received three U.S. patents for her research directed at basic and applied aspects of using microbial inoculants to promote growth and enhance tolerance to drought stress in multiple crops.
