Sarah Mukolwe was born in Kajiado county and raised in West Pokot -- two counties well known for their pastoralist activities. She experienced many of the challenges faced by pastoralists, especially disease pandemics that often wiped their stocks.

In the hope of understanding and providing solutions to these pandemics, Sarah became a researcher, focusing on emerging and re-emerging pests and parasites, diagnosing and treating diseases and developing vaccines.

Sarah Mukolwe was born in Kajiado county and raised in West Pokot -- two counties well known for their pastoralist activities. She experienced many of the challenges faced by pastoralists, especially disease pandemics that often wiped their stocks.

In the hope of understanding and providing solutions to these pandemics, Sarah became a researcher, focusing on emerging and re-emerging pests and parasites, diagnosing and treating diseases and developing vaccines.

In 2009, Sarah was hired by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries as a zoologist. She has since worked with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE).

She has been working to eradicate the African Tsetse fly, by educating farmers with her latest research findings

“From my experience, Africa has been long starved from research and technologies that can solve our problems. There is need for a paradigm shift – we need to invest more in research and come up with more problem solving technologies.”  

She is psyched about the YPARD mentoring program. She wants to make her contribution in nurturing the next crop of scientists.

“They need to be tapped at an age when interest in science generally declines.”

She hopes to help cultivate the next crop of problem solvers through this program.  She will help her mentees to grow professionally through sharing her knowledge, experience and networks.