Bee professor who’s made history as National Museum of Kenya first female boss

Long before the title, she was deep in the forests with the bees. For her master’s, she set off to study the stingless bees of Mount Kenya. For her PhD, she disappeared into Kakamega Forest, adding to the country’s record of its pollinators.

At Nairobi’s City Park, she uncovered the surprising richness of urban pollinator life, documenting more than 100 species thriving there.

She is the first to map the over 200 bee species found in Kenya. With German partners, she went on to establish the Centre for Bee Biology & Pollination Ecology, a hub that now trains and supports young scholars—a lasting footprint of her PhD. “Bee conservation isn’t just about bees,” she says. “It’s about our survival.”

If you are one to be swept by colloquialisms, you could say, Professor is the Queen Bee.

The other message she leaves you with is that leadership is spiritual. Effort alone doesn’t count. “I’m not here by accident,” she says. “I am qualified—by the grace of God—to take this position. God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called. And I have been called.”

Now, her mandate is simple and immense; to bridge science and heritage. And she has her sleeves folded to the elbow.

When walking in, I saw photos of a lot of men at the landing, former director generals. Yours is missing. When is your photo going to go up there?

Well, I always try to do the first things first. There was a job waiting for me—it wasn’t a time to show off, but a time to get in and work.

The rest will follow later. I’m not saying no to it, but that time will come when I put my portrait there. But for one reason only: for the glory of God. Not for my fame, but to show that young women in Kenya can make it; that women belong in this space too.

Did you see yourself here, at the top of this space?

Did I? That’s an interesting question. [Pause] My journey has been interesting, a journey of faith because I crossed over from the University of Nairobi with nothing but my certificate.

I began as a research assistant, but soon developed a desire to return to school. After eight years at the National Museums of Kenya, I went back for a Master’s in Conservation Biology. Paying for it was tough, but ICIPE covered my first year, and Unesco supported the second. Their faith in me left me humbled.

As I was finishing my Master’s, Unesco offered to support a PhD, but on my mentors’ advice, I took up a program in Germany at the University of Bonn. It was hectic—I had to finish my thesis in six months before leaving—but I managed.

My Master’s had focused on stingless bees in Mount Kenya Forest; for my PhD, I shifted to Kakamega Forest, documenting over 200 bee species, the first such record in Kenya.

Working with global experts, I helped classify species and place our biodiversity on the scientific map, just as bee decline was becoming a global concern.

From that work, I proposed a centre for Bee Biology and Pollination Ecology at the Museums. With German support, it was established and later inaugurated by the president. Today, it has trained many scholars—a lasting footprint of my PhD.

When my PhD funding ended, I was offered a postdoc, then another grant with me as co-applicant. In all, I worked for nine years in Kakamega Forest, always anchored at the Museums. My Master’s, PhD, and postdoc overlapped and intertwined, and each step led to another. That is my journey.

Why bees? Why not something else?

I’m a trained entomologist. Bees, like other pollinators, are in decline. Donors wanted to support bee research, and that’s how I found myself specialising in bee taxonomy and ecology.

Tell me something interesting about bees.

Bees are remarkable. They pollinate about 75 percent of flowering crops and plants. Imagine if they disappeared—where would we get our fruits? Our watermelons, berries, pears, cucumbers, avocados, and pumpkins. Then there are carpenter bees—the ones that drill holes in timber.

They might seem destructive, but they are vital pollinators for beans, passion fruits, and many forest plants. So if bees vanish, forests can’t regenerate. Without shrubs and herbs, herbivores lose their food.

Without forest regeneration, carbon sequestration collapses, and deserts spread. Food security itself would be at risk. That’s why bee conservation isn’t just about bees—it’s about our survival.

So we have to be kinder to bees.

Yes, we do. For years, farmers have only thought about fighting pests, never about protecting beneficial insects like bees. We need more conversations about the importance of bees.

Who cares about termites? Who cares about dung beetles? Yet without dung beetles, we’d be surrounded by waste. They recycle nutrients. Earthworms too—they enrich the soil. Conservation isn’t just about the “big five.” We should also think about the “small five”—the hidden species that quietly sustain life.

How do you intend to bridge science and heritage?

Understanding what heritage is—and how to document it—is crucial. To do that, you need scientific methods.

We can speak of two strands; cultural and natural heritage. Natural heritage includes the tree species I’ve mentioned, the mammals, the plants—everything that forms our biodiversity.

Cultural heritage includes our sites and monuments, as well as collections we gather from the field. Both require a scientific approach if we are to document heritage in its totality.

Take paleontological materials, for example. These are fossils—once-living organisms now preserved in stone. To study them, you must understand paleontology, the science of fossilisation itself. So you see, heritage management and conservation cannot be separated from science. They depend on it.

As a first woman in that position, do you feel the weight of responsibility?

That’s a very important question. Being the first woman in this position, of course, there were doubts—can she make it? But I remind myself: yes, I can.

I am here as a woman, and I believe God has wired us differently for different purposes in different seasons. That gives me confidence as I sit here. I know I’m not here by accident. I am qualified—by the grace of God—to take this position. God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called. And I have been called.

And you have been called. That should go on a wall somewhere. Or on a t-shirt. That is so beautiful. We should just end this interview right now, with that quote.

[Laughs] If the Lord called me here, then He qualified me. Many others are also qualified, but God chose me for this position—for His glory, not mine. It’s a calling. Without that inner conviction, quitting would be very easy.

The weight is real, the expectations enormous. It’s not about testing the waters—it’s about taking the wheel and steering this institution to the level it’s meant to reach, for as long as the Lord has given me to lead it.

When did you centralise God in your life?

God has been at the centre of my life even before I was born. The Bible says in Psalms 139 that before I was formed in my mother’s womb, God already knew me. So my story started with Him. But He also used people along the way to help me know Him better.

I remember a neighbour in my village, right after she finished Form Four. She made it her mission to preach to the children around.

She would prepare mala (sour milk) with some sugar, invite us over for fellowship, and then share the word of God with us. Out of those small gatherings, we came to know God, to live for Him, and to understand what it means to be a Christian.

By the grace of God, I gave my life to Him at a very young age. And I also learned that it’s not about my effort alone. Faith and work matter, yes, but if God is not in it, you may not go very far.

Tell me something that happened in your life as a little girl that you remember. Anything random.

As a little girl growing up on the slopes of Mount Kenya, I had my frustrations. I remember when I chose to pursue science, one of my primary school teachers asked me, “When did girls start doing science? Why science? Science isn’t for girls.”

This was the early ’70s. At that time, nobody believed a young girl could go on to high school, to A-levels, and then to university. So when my teachers heard I was going to take science at A-level, they discouraged me—my own teachers, the very people who had taught me. That crushed me. But I told myself, this is my dream to be a scientist, not theirs.

By the grace of God, I pressed on. I joined A-level and took biology, chemistry, geography, and mathematics. And I felt satisfied—I was doing it for myself, because it was my dream.

There was a professor working at Kabete, the late Professor Mugera. The stories of his brilliance made him almost mythical to us. Whenever he drove into the village, we children would hide in the bushes, whispering, ‘The professor is passing! I told myself: ‘One day I would wish to be a professor. I don't know how one can become one. But one day I would like to be a professor.’ My parents were coffee farmers.

After all that time in the forests studying bees, did you discover anything unexpected about yourself or that shaped your view of life?

I think just the revelation of how God puts everything together—and my responsibility to care for His creation. I love Genesis chapter one.

After God created everything, man came in on the sixth day. Why the sixth day? Because man was meant to be a co-manager of God’s creation.

That means I carry a responsibility: to care for the environment. Too often, we destroy it in the name of production and development. But do we stop to ask what is in the ground? Do we think about the species disappearing and their importance? Many times, we don’t. But people cannot act on what they don’t know.

That’s why we work to raise awareness—through projects that help communities appreciate God’s creation: to care for the forests, the bees, the frogs. Every animal was created for a purpose. Yet many people only think about cows or maybe the Big Five.

As an institution, we want to change that mindset. We want to unpack heritage for society—to show Kenyans the value of what we have.

That’s why we already have a collaborative framework with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD). This heritage knowledge must be taught early, from childhood, so it can take root.

Apart from God and bees, what else are you very passionate about?

I love cooking. Whenever I get the time, I like cooking for my family and friends. And then there’s farming—you know, I was brought up through farming.

When I was in school, there wasn’t a single time I was handed cash to pay fees. What we carried instead was a letter from the Coffee Cooperative Society.

In those days, there was so much trust. The cooperative would write to the headmaster or principal, saying that once the coffee was sold, they would wire the fees. That was enough.

Tell me about family.

I’m a mother of three children. They make me feel that all the toiling is worth it—because they appreciate it. My husband is also a scientist, a meteorologist.

He did his Master’s in communication and his PhD in disaster management. But we’ve always allowed our children to become what they want. That’s the best way of raising them. If we all became bee specialists, imagine how boring that family would be!

[Chuckles] So now we have diversity: one child is in building science, our lastborn is a lawyer finishing her pupillage, and our firstborn is a marketer. And on top of that, I’ve been blessed with daughters-in-law and grandchildren.

You’re a grandmother! Very nice!

Yes, a grandmother of two. And it feels so good. One of them takes after me; he loves bees. I harvest honey with him. He understands bees. And when he wants to visit me, he says, “I want to go to my grandmother’s place because I want to see the bees.”

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