Damien Shumbusha (Ph.D.) is a Senior Plant Breeding & Seed Systems Expert at FAO. His recent work at FAO focused on the coordination of Hand-in-Hand and TAP-AIS projects. Prior joining FAO, he worked as Senior Research Fellow at Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB), Crop Innovation and Technology Transfer Department, leading its national potato and sweetpotato program. He has been instrumental in leveraging both crops' contribution to food security, nutrition quality and income. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Plant Breeding, from the university of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In 2012, he graduated with MSc in Plant Breeding and Seed Systems from Makerere University, Uganda, a scholarship offered by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). In 2005, he was awarded a BSc in Crop Production and Horticulture from the University of Rwanda. His extended and progressive experience (16 years) was acquired from various organizations/ institutions namely, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), CARITAS, "Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda (ISAR)", Protestant Institute of Agriculture and Social Sciences (PIASS) and Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB).

While in RAB, he led the National sweetpotato research program, at the same time, principal investigator of agricultural research projects such as (i) Development of New Agriculture Technologies in Africa (DONATA), (ii) Improving Food Security through scaling up Newly Released Varieties, (iii) Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa-Rwanda (SASHA), (iv)) AGRA-Rwanda sweetpotato breeding project, (v) Integrating ICT in commercial production of clean seed, and many more. In 2013, he officially released six new high-yielding sweetpotato varieties namely RW11-17, RW11-1860, RW11-2419, RW11-2560, RW11-2910 and RW11- 4923. He has published more than 15 original papers in peer-reviewed journals, and he is a reviewer for various journals. He is a member of the African Potato Association (APA) since 2012.