**Meet the editors**

Ruth Wanyera is a principal research scientist and works as a plant pathologist at Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, Njoro, since 1981. She is the head of the Department of Plant Pathology, a national wheat coordinator, and a graduate from the Ukrainian Agricultural Academy, Russia. She has extensive research experience in wheat rust diseases, including phe-

notyping, surveys, and surveillance. She is an outstanding ABCF alumnus and an African Women in Agricultural Research and Development fellow. She has contributed to the release of wheat varieties with adult plant resistance to the wheat stem rust race Ug99 and its variants. She is a member of the American Phytopathological Society and Crop Science Society of America and founder member of Kenya Professional Association of Women in Agriculture and Development. She has written and published several technical reports and journal papers and contributed to book chapters. She has coordinated research projects funded by international, regional, and national bodies. She has won a number of awards including the 2015 Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Gene Stewardship Award.

James Owuoche is a wheat breeder with vast experience in wheat, barley, and triticale. Dr. Owuoche holds BSc in Agriculture (Nairobi), MSc in Wheat Breeding (University of Alberta), and PhD from Kansas State University (US). He has previously worked at the Wheat Research Center (current KALRO) as a breeder and is interested in developing wheat and small grain cereals resistant

to biotic and abiotic stresses with suitable traits for baking and industrial end-use qualities using both conventional and molecular breeding. Currently, Dr. Owuoche is a lecturer at Egerton University, Kenya and a reviewer with reputable international journals, and has supervised 12 MSc students and 5 PhD students and published over 20 papers in refereed journals. During this period of his career, he has contributed to the development and release of several wheat and sorghum varieties for baking and industrial use in Kenya.
