Réussite Bugale Malembaka

Research interests
My research interests are centered on the sustainable soil fertility management and fertilization but also on the understanding of the environmental impact of agricultural resources use in food production and value chain. I have been passionate about soil-microbes-plants interaction and I earned my first research experience when I joined IITA Kalambo research station as a bachelor student to conduct my bachelor dissertation research, under the N2Africa project in which I carried a research on native rhizobia biofertilizer inoculants effect on the growth and nodulation of soybean under greenhouse conditions, with the purpose of replenishing nitrogen in the soil through the biological nitrogen fixation in soybean production.

I graduated with a M.Sc. in Soil science and in my master research I investigated the myccorhizal fungi communities associated with maize in different agroecologies to improve phosphorus and zinc uptake by maize in acidic soils. Afterwards I worked as a researcher and lecturer assistant at the Catholic University of Bukavu where I taught and supervised bachelor students in their undergraduate dissertations in the topics related to soil microbiology, organic and mineral fertilization in various crops production.

My current PhD project is part of the DELIBERATE project which is a multi-disciplinary project aiming at linking the deliberative quality of soy and coffee value chains to ecological “foodprints”. In my project, under the supervision of Prof. Johanna Jacobi, I will be working on the sustainability of soybean production and value chains, and will assess the environmental impacts of different soybean-based agri-food value chains in Brazil and DRC, using life cycle assessment methods from production to consumption and beyond.

Education
In progress: PhD Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich
2020 M.Sc. Soil science. University of Nairobi, Kenya
2016 B.Sc. Agricultural science, Catholic University of Bukavu, DRC