Dr. Alexander Wireko Kena is a Plant Breeder and Molecular Geneticist in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana.

He envisions an Africa with a high quality of life for its people, where there is zero hunger and malnutrition. In contributing to this vision, he leverages existing technologies and innovates new tools to improve crop performance in a sustainable manner for climate resilience and higher productivity.

His research utilizes goal-directed and hypothesis-driven approaches to make significant contributions to knowledge. He has co-authored peer-reviewed publications in reputable journals and several academic conference papers.

He has worked as a Research Scholar in the Crop Adaptation Lab in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA. He recently underwent a professional development and training program in plant breeding offered by the University of California, Davis, and graduated from the African Plant Breeding Academy.

In addition to his primary expertise in breeding and genetics, Dr. Kena is actively involved in open-source software development using R programming to make user-friendly and accessible software to agricultural researchers to drive genetic gain.

Dr. Kena teaches graduate and undergraduate-level courses in genetics, plant breeding, statistics, and molecular genetics. He co-leads breeding programs that seek to develop climate-smart varieties in maize, cowpea, millet, groundnut, and rice.