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Growing up in Uganda, Catherine Nakalembe witnessed her mother and other farmers grapple with unpredictable weather patterns with no access to agricultural data.
Bent on making a difference, she devoted her PhD at the University of Maryland to exploring land cover change, agriculture and drought in northeastern Uganda – applying her knowledge to address challenges in her home country.
Now an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences, Nakalembe’s XylemLab focuses on utilizing remote sensing and machine learning to improve agricultural monitoring for food security and early warning of disasters in smallholder dominated landscapes.
She also serves as the Africa Director of NASA Harvest and the Agriculture and Food Security Thematic Lead for NASA SERVIR Applied Sciences.
Despite being based thousands of kilometers from home, Nakalembe hasn’t lost touch with her roots.
“Growing up in a large family in Uganda taught me the fundamental importance of caring for one another,” she reflects.
“This experience instilled in me the value of putting people at the center, above titles, jobs or accolades.
“Anyone who spends more than five minutes talking with me can sense this authentic connection to my roots. It’s simply the Ugandan in me. This human-centered approach remains the cornerstone of how I address food security challenges.”
Nakalembe’s work bridges the gap between technology, geography and food security by leveraging satellite data and AI to understand agricultural production and its vulnerabilities.
She analyzes how extreme weather events and resource limitations negatively impact food systems and searches for ways to adapt food systems to the climate crisis.
“Throughout this journey, I’ve remained committed to making tangible differences in African farmers’ lives by enhancing their resilience to the complexities of food production in an era of climate variability.”
Nakalembe has received numerous awards and honors, including the prestigious Al-Sumait Prize, the 2022 Golden Jubilee Medal (the highest civilian award in Uganda), the 2020 Africa Food Prize and a 2019 GEO Individual Excellence Award for her dedication to improving food security in Africa through the enhanced use of Earth observations.
