Dr. Onyilo Francis is a Lecturer in the Department of Crop Science. He is a former Coordinator and Acting Head of Agricultural Sciences in Muni University from 2018 to March 2021, and he supported the planning and establishment of the Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at Muni University. Francis holds a PhD in Plant Pathology and Biotechnology, MSc in Nematology (Applied Agro- ecosystems) and BSc in Agriculture (Crop Science). His primary research focus is in Functional genetics in fungal plant pathogens, Molecular plant microbe-nematode interactions, Genetic improvement of crops for resistance to diseases, Biological control of nematodes and insect pests. Some of his articles in peer-reviewed journals can be accessed in https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MZHxM6kAAAAJ&hl=en
He is currently implementing; ERASMUS- EU, Capacity Building in Higher Education, “Nematology Education in Sub-Sahara Africa”, aMulti- institutional collaborative project with Ghent University, Belgium.
Francis is also a Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Programme (LEAP) Alumni. Previously he was a Research Fellow at Transgenic Research Laboratory, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture based at Bioscience for East and Central Africa (BeCA) ILRI Nairobi Kenya and Department of Plant Pathology University of California Davis, USA. He also worked as a visiting Lecturer at the Department of Biotechnical and Diagnostic Sciences, School of Bio- security, Biotechnology and Laboratory Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala; and Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Gulu University. As a Research Fellow he received an award for Best Research and Oral presentation in Biotechnology and Crop improvement in the20th IASARF Annual Conference, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan Nigeria,10th- 14th / 07/ 2017 and he was amongst the Top ten research fellows selected by the Norman Borlaug Leadership enhancement program- USAID to attend the World Food Prize events 14th- 20th / October/ 2018in Des Moines, Iowa USA.http://bulletin.iita.org/index.php/2018/11/23/iita-phd-student-attend-2018-world-food-prize/.
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