Professor Eric Onyango Odada has both a national and international reputation in the field of geoscience and sustainable development. As an Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society, we are confident that Professor Odada will continue this engagement, and be eager to share his perspectives and experience in using geoscience to inform international policy and support society.
His advocacy for the role of geoscience in sustainable development, pursuit of excellent environmental change research, and investment in building the capacity of others, all strongly aligns with the values of the Geological Society.
Professor Odada holds a PhD in Applied Geochemistry from Imperial College London, and he is both a Professor of Geology at the University of Nairobi and Regional Director of the Global Change Research Programme in Africa.
Previously, he served in Kenya as Chief Research Officer at the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, and Principal Geologist with the Mines and Geology Department of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. As an Earth Scientist, his fundamental endeavour has been to study Global Environmental Change (GEC) as way of understanding how the Earth system works.
A former member of the United Nations Secretary General Advisory Board on water and sanitation, Professor Odada is currently a member of the committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the Conduct of Science (CFRS) of the International Council of Science (ICSU). He is a Fellow of the Kenya National Academy of Sciences (KNAS); World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) and Geological Society of Kenya (GSK).
In 1997 he founded the African Collaborative Centre for Earth System Science (ACCESS) and a United Nations University (UNU) Post Graduate Programme on IWRM at the University of Nairobi. He is currently Director of these two centres based in Nairobi, Kenya.
He has published over one hundred papers in peer reviewed international journals and many books on the hydrology, limnology and biodiversity of the African Great Lakes.
He is currently undertaking a strategic assessment of water resource vulnerability to environmental change, and working with UNEP-GEF on a study of atmospheric deposition of micronutrients in rivers and lakes in equatorial Africa.
He is also leading a research consortium of African, European and North American scientists interested in promoting the investigation of water infrastructure solutions from ecosystem services, underpinning climate resilience policies and programmes in Africa.