IMPACT OF AWARD ON AFRICAN

WOMEN SCIENTISTS

Bridget Bobadoye 2011 AWARD FELLOW

A Career-development Program

That equips top women agricultural scientists by strengthening science and leadership skills.

AWARD is Bridging the Gap by:

Empowering and equipping women agricultural scientists by:

• Fostering mentoring relationships• Building science skills• Developing leadership• Tracking learning, monitoring, and

evaluation

AWARD Fellowship Winner

• Between 2008 and 2013, 2,960 women from more than 450 institutions in 11 countries competed for 325 AWARD Fellowships.

• I am one of 73 Nigerian winners to date.

Providing fellowships in 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa

Ripple effects: 707 scientists in 200+ organizations

325 fellows270 mentors 112 mentees

1.BRIDGET AT WORK

2. Fostering Mentoring Partnerships

3. Fostering Mentoring Partnerships

Professor Baldwyn TortoAWARD Mentor

Dr. Lucy Kananu MurungiAWARD Fellow

3:Building science skills.

3:Building Presentation & Writing Skills.

6: Conference participation.

7: Conference Participation.

Fig 6:Cultural Diversity.

Fig 7:Visibility and Networking.

Advanced science training at world-class research institutions

4. Developing Leadership Capacity

5: Developing Leadership Capacity.

ADVANCED SCIENCE TRAINING AT ICIPE

APRIL- NOVEMBER, 2013.

Training Program and Activities.

MONTH RESEARCH ACTIVITY

APRIL Pollen analysis/ molecular isolation & identification of viral diseases in Honey bees.

MAY Field Sampling for honey bee pests & diseases / field and Laboratory Bioassays set up with SHBs/ volatile collection / GC-MS AND GC-EAD analysis.

JUNE Rearing of honey bee pests /Pesticide residue analysis.

JULY/AUGUST

Bioassay set-ups with stingless bees/ Running of experiments

SEPT/OCT Field trips to kakamega forests & kitui for trial experiments

NOVEMBER Report writing/ Manuscript preparation

Activity 1 (April): IDENTIFICATION OF VIRAL DISEASES IN AHBs.

DWV is an RNA virus, one of the 18 known viruses affecting bees (Iqbal et al,2007).

Viral diseases of AHBs include BQCV, DWV.

Honey bee samples were sourced from kitui.

RNA isolation was done using the trisol method, phase separation, RNA precipitation and solubilization.

Virus strains were identified using cDNA synthesis.

Results showed that about 70% of honey bee samples had strains of the virus.

Fig 8: AHBs infected with DWV.

Activity 2( May): ATTRACTIVENESS OF BANANA VOLATILES TO SHBs

Small Hive beetle Aethina tumida are scavengers found in feral and managed colonies of honey bees (Ellis et al,2006).

SHBs feed on bee brood, honey and pollen but will feed on fruits and

decaying meat as alternate hosts.

Alarm pheromones are volatile compounds released by worker bees in

response to a threat.

Alarm pheromones (Isopentyl acetate) from bees smells like bananas.

Fig 11a: Aethina tumida Adults.

Fig 10: Rearing of SHBs Larvae.

Fig 11b:Sexing of Aethina tumida adults.

Fig 12:Volatile collection set-up.

Thank you