Dr Rahab N. Kinyanjui is a Senior Research Scientist working at the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), Earth Science Department, Palynology and Paleobotany section.
Her main Research interests are reconstructing past vegetation histories, paleoenvironments and palaeoclimates through the study of both plant micro-fossils (phytoliths, pollen, spores, charcoal, diatoms) and macro-fossils (wood, leaves, seeds).
Dr Kinyanjui also works with modern ecologists especially in pollination ecology, land-use and land-cover changes, human-environment interactions, grasslands dynamics, and most recent role of silica in cereal crops (e.g. rice, maize, millet, sorghum).
Her Research work goes back from the Miocene geological period to the present time. Spatially, Dr Kinyanjui works in a variety of landscapes, from mountainous moist and dry forests to arid-semi-arid savanna landscapes.
She is the Founder and Manager of the Phytolith database housed at the NMK. Dr Kinyanjui is a Registered Geologist (GSK). She is also a Member and Country Representative of the Eastern African Quaternary Research Association (EAQUA); a Member of the Eastern African Association of Palaeoanthropology and Palaeontology society (EAAPP), and an African Pollen Data (Neotoma) Steward.
Dr Kinyanjui is a Senior Instructor at the Koobi Fora Training and Research (KFTR) summer school that runs annually in collaboration with the National Museums of Kenya and the George Washington University (CASHP).
She is currently Mentoring and Supervising two MSc students and two PhD students.
