Gebisa ejeta biography samples
2009: Ejeta
Dr. Gebisa Ejeta
ethiopia
Gebisa Ejeta of Purdue University and ICRISAT was awarded the 2009 World Food Prize for increasing the supply of one of the world’s principal grains by developing the first high-yielding hybrid sorghum plants, resistant both to drought and attack from Striga—a parasitic weed plaguing 40 percent of Africa’s arable land. His achievement enhanced food security for hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.
Full Biography
Born in 1950, Gebisa Ejeta grew up in a one-room, thatched hut with a mud floor in the rural village of Wollonkomi in west-central Ethiopia. His mother’s deep belief in education and her commitment to provide her son with access to local teachers and schools provided the young Ejeta with the means to rise out of poverty and hardship. She made arrangements for him to go to school in a neighboring town. He walked 20 kilometers every Sunday night to attend school during the week and walked back home on Friday. The young Ejeta rapidly ascended through eight grades and passed the national exam qualifying him to enter high school.
Ejeta’s high academic standing earned him financial assistance and entrance to the secondary-level Jimma Agricultural and Technical School in Ethiopia, which had been established by Oklahoma State University (OSU) under the U.S. government’s Point Four Program. After graduating with distinction, Ejeta entered Alemaya College (also established by OSU and supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development) in the eastern part of the country.
He received his bachelor’s degree in plant science in 1973, at which time his college mentor introduced Ejeta to a renowned sorghum researcher, John Axtell of Purdue University. Axtell invited him to assist in collecting sorghum species from around the country, and was so impressed with Ejeta that he invited him to become his graduate student. This invitatio
We’re sorry, this site is currently experiencing technical difficulties.
Please try again in a few moments.
Exception: forbidden
Gebisa Ejeta
Ethiopian American geneticist
Gebisa Ejeta (born 1950) is an Ethiopian American plant breeder, geneticist and Professor at Purdue University. In 2009, he won the World Food Prize for his major contributions in the production of sorghum.
Early years
Ejeta was born in the remote village Wollonkomi, Ethiopia to Oromo parents. Encouraged by his mother, he walked 20 kilometres to the nearest elementary school every Sunday evening and spend the week there.
During primary school, Ejeta planned to study engineering when he reached college age. However, his mother convinced him he could do more working in agriculture. With assistance from the Oklahoma State University, he attended an agricultural and technical secondary school in Ethiopia, and also studied at what is now Haramaya University. The university and the U.S. Agency for International Development helped him earn a doctorate from Purdue University.
Working in Sudan during the early 1980s, Ejeta developed Africa's first commercial hybrid variety of sorghum tolerant to drought. Later, with a Purdue University colleague in Indiana, he discovered the chemical basis of the relationship between the deadly parasitic weed striga and sorghum, and was able to produce sorghum varieties resistant to both drought and striga.
On 2011 President Barack Obama appointed Gebisa Ejeta as Member, Board for International Food and Agricultural Development.
The National Medal of Science was awarded to Ejeta by President Biden in 2023.
Awards
Publications
Ongom, Patrick O. and G. Ejeta. 2018. Mating design and genetic structure of a multi-parent advanced generation inter-cross (MAGIC) population of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench). G3 Genes/Genomes/Genet. 8(1):331-341.
Ongom, Patrick O., J. Volenec, G. Ejeta. 2016. Selection for drought tolerance in sorghum using desiccants to simulate post-anthesis drought stress. Field Crops Res Food scientist Gebisa Ejeta couldn’t stand idly by while people suffer from hunger. Born in a remote village in Ethiopia more than 70 years ago, Ejeta would walk more than 12 miles to school in a nearby town to learn. His mother later encouraged him, with help from an Oklahoma State University program in Ethiopia, to attend an agricultural and technical secondary school. “I come from just abject poverty,” Ejeta told Reuters in a 2009 interview. “It was not difficult to recognize if those kinds of opportunities could be made available to more kids like me, then the community would be better.” That investment into his education would be the beginning of one of the most ambitious and impactful projects in food technology: fortifying sorghum to be resistant to striga, disease, and environmental stressors like drought and cold by breeding new varieties of the crop. Striga — or witchweed — may be beautiful to look at, with its delicate, colorful flowers. But its parasitic roots siphon water and nutrients from host plants, devastating them. When striga comes into contact with sorghum, the fifth most produced cereal crop in the world, it leaves very little edible food in its wake. More than 300 million people in Africa rely on sorghum as a steady and delicious source of nutrition. (Bump that to 500 million if you include Asia.) Yet striga can cause anywhere from 20 to 100 percent crop losses in an infested field, effectively starving broad swaths of people. In 2009, Ejeta won the World Food Prize for developing the first high-yield hybrid sorghum plants, resistant to both drought and attack from striga. Since then, he’s created several other resilient varieties — one current variety in development is a white sorghum that can grow in lowlands. And in October, 14 years later, he was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Science, the highest scie Gebisa Ejeta is finding lasting solutions to hunger