LCLUCer Dr. Catherine Nakalembe has been honored with Uganda's highest civilian award, the Golden Jubilee Medal, in recognition of her efforts to improve food security in Africa. While completing her doctorate at the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, Catherine served as a program support for the NASA LCLUC Program. Currently, Catherine works at the Department of Geographical Sciences as an associate research professor and leads NASA Harvest's Africa Program. 

In 2017, as a part of her Ph.D., Nakalembe developed the trigger mechanism of the disaster risk financing program in Uganda that supported over 300,000 households in the Karamoja region. In addition, she has developed a food security and crop monitoring bulletin for Uganda, as well as Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Eastern Africa using satellite data. Through collaboration with national ministries and regional agencies, Nakalembe helps countries develop satellite-based crop monitoring and early warning systems that anticipate future crop failures. Tools like these help nations at risk of crop failure to take precautionary measures against devastating consequences. 

This is not the first time that Nakalembe has been recognized for her efforts to improve food security in Africa. In 2019, she was awarded the Group on Earth Observations’ (GEO) inaugural Individual Excellence Award and a year later she was named a 2020 Africa Food Prize laureate. 

Here is a video about Dr. Nakalembe's work. 

Monday, February 21, 2022