Born to a pastoralist family in Moyale near the Kenya-Ethiopia border, Hassan Roba understands deeply the challenges facing pastoralist and agro-pastoral communities in the African Rift Valley. He worked for six years at the Center for Indigenous Knowledge at the National Museums of Kenya, collaborating mainly with northern Kenyan pastoralist communities on the integration of local and scientific approaches in the management of complex biocultural landscapes. His main research interests include pastoral land-use systems, Indigenous knowledge and resource management, participatory research, and environmental governance.
Hassan holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and an MSc. in Dryland Biodiversity from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He was a post-doctorate fellow at the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL) at the University of Kassel where he was involved in a cross-continental research network for sustainable adaptation of grassland ecosystems vulnerable to climate change.
As Program Officer for the African Rift Valley for The Christensen Fund, Hassan works at the local, regional, and international levels to enable the Indigenous communities of the Rift to protect their biocultural heritage and to develop biocultural livelihood options. He speaks fluent Kiswahili and English. Hassan is based in Nairobi where he lives with his wife and children.