WARDA Visiting Fellows and trainees win international awards

WARDA is proud to announce that three of its Visiting Fellows and trainees were selected to receive world-class awards:

Christiane Doré prize: The Christiane Doré prize is a highly acclaimed annual award instituted by the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), France. The prize is given for excellence in research (thesis, scientific article, invention or patent).

Fatogoma Sorho, from Côte d’Ivoire, received the 2007 Christiane Doré prize for his thesis on “Rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV) in West Africa”, which was unanimously selected by the Christiane Doré jury for the excellent quality of his research work.

Fatogoma did his doctoral thesis under the supervision of WARDA scientist Dr Y Sere and IRD scientist Dr D Fargette.


UNESCO-L’OREAL Fellowship for Young Women in Life Sciences: Created in 1998, the UNESCO-L’OREAL partnership supports women of science and allows the laureates to pursue research on life sciences in world-renowned institutes. Many of you know that Dr Khady Nani Dramé, Visiting Fellow, in the WARDA Biotechnology Unit, won this award last year.

Following on her footsteps, another young PhD student, Ms Yonelle Dea Moukoumbi, from Gabon, is the recipient of the 2008 UNESCO-L’ORÉAL Fellowship award. She will receive the award at the awards ceremony in Paris, France, on 6 March 2008

Yonelle is receiving the award for her proposal on “Genetic diversity of lowland NERICA and selection of promising lines adapted to the African agro-ecological diversity.” Thanks to this award, Yonnelle will carry out the field work for her PhD under Dr M Sié at WARDA.


CODESRIA award: The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), headquartered in Senegal, is a pioneer among African social research organizations. Through its “Small Grants for Thesis Writing”, it has awarded grants to over 1000 laureates from various universities in Africa.

Ms Alice Bonou, from Benin, who was a trainee under WARDA economist Dr A Diagne, has been selected to receive the CODESRIA award. She will receive the prize money of USD 2500 for her thesis on “The impact of NERICA varieties on the rice biodiversity in Benin”. She did this thesis as part of her Ingenieur Agronome studies.

Congratulations to all these laureates, who are paving the way to a glorious scientific future for Africa. Let us also give a big round of applause to their supervisors who have nurtured or are going to nurture these young stars.