Dr. Murugi Ndirangu

Dr. Murugi Ndirangu joined the newly-constituted Columbia Global Centers | Nairobi in January 2017.

Dr. Ndirangu spearheads the Center's education, research, and public programming activities through the provision of strategic and administrative leadership to the Center and serves as a liaison to academic divisions, professional schools, and administrative units of Columbia University for both regional and local partners. As a researcher and educationalist, Dr. Ndirangu is passionate about improving the quality of higher education in the region and seeking to advance research activities to advance the quality of life and enhance economic development in the region.

After graduating with a B.Ed-Education and Master in Education-Psychology from Kenyatta University in Kenya, Dr. Ndirangu completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Nutrition and Food Systems from the University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in the U.S. In her early career, Dr. Ndirangu joined Columbia University's Earth's Institute, as a post-doctoral fellow working in the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) on research and implementation of food, nutrition and HIV interventions.
With over seventeen years of experience in HIV/AIDS food and nutrition security, health initiatives and higher education, Dr. Ndirangu has extensively researched, particularly in resource-challenged rural and urban settings in Kenya, West Africa, and low-income neighbourhoods in the Lower Mississippi Delta regions of the United States.

Dr. Ndirangu has authored and co-authored diverse peer-reviewed and technical publication records on nutrition and food science. Until 2018, Murugi was the East African Coordinator for the African Nutritional Sciences Research Consortium and is a member of Kenya's National Commission for Science, Technology, and Innovation (NACOSTI) inter-Agency Committee on Research and Innovation to national development.