The Council of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), at its 31st Regular Meeting, 2nd Session held on Friday, April 8, 2022, approved the promotion of Dr. (Mrs.) Mercy Afua Adutwumwaa Derkyi from Senior Lecturer to an Associate Professor at the Department of Forest Science. This promotion makes her the first female Staff to be promoted to Professorial status in the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR).
Prof. (Mrs.) Derkyi is currently the Acting Director of the Centre for Professional Development (CePDev) at UENR.
Professor (Mrs.) Derkyi received her PhD in 2012 in social sciences with a speciality in Forest Governance and Conflict Management at the University of Amsterdam with a scholarship from Tropenbos International. Her career in academia started in 2013 as a Lecturer in the Department of Forest Science at the University of Energy and Natural Resources and she won some career and professional development fellowships. She was a visiting scholar at the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA), 2014 Fellow of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), of which she is the president of GhaWARD and in 2015 was a post-doctoral fellow of Climate Impact Research Capacity and Leadership Enhancement Programme for sub-Saharan Africa (CIRCLE).
Her scope of research and practice has been in the forest landscape, which has endowed her with 22 years of working experience across the state forest sector, non-governmental organizations, and academia. She co-founded the Conservation and Development Foundation (CONDEF), where she supported fundraising and proposals developed for the organization. Her research focus has centered on climate change, social research methodology, conflict management, governance and gender in the agriculture and forestry sectors in the past nine years.
She initiated the establishment of the Centre for Climate Change and Gender Studies (3CGS) at the University of Energy and Natural Resources. She was the gender expert of a feasibility study on Renewable Energies for Pilot Project Implementation in Ghana, 2018. She was also the Dean of the School of Natural Resources from 2019-to 2021 and facilitated the purchase of the School Mini-Bus, among other achievements. She is involved in some collaborative national and international projects. She is a member of national and international organizations such as GIF, OWSD, and IUFRO and facilitated workshops, international conferences and short courses. She is a social research methodology-visiting lecturer under the WASCAL Doctoral Research Programme on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, University of Lome. She has authored over forty (40) publications under edited journal publications, book chapters, manuals, newsletters, info sheets, policy briefs and research reports. She has also supervised undergraduate and graduate students. In all these working trajectories, she has been fortunate to be mentored by renowned scientists, and she has and still mentors early career researchers and students.
She graduated with a BSc in Natural Resource Management (Forestry Option) in 2000 from KNUST, Ghana and MSc in Agroforestry from the same University.
Congratulations to Prof. (Mrs.) Mercy Afua Adutwumwaa Derkyi for this well-deserved rank.
