Eric Yirenkyi Danquah  Eric Yirenkyi Danquah is a Ghanaian plant geneticist, professor, founding director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) and former director of the Biotechnology Centre at the University of Ghana. Danquah attended Akosombo Experimental School (1964-1972), and the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School (PRESEC) in Legon (1972-1979). He graduated with a BSc in Agriculture (Crop Science) from the University of Ghana in 1984. He then worked as an intern at a dairy and cereals farm in Germany, before returning to Ghana to complete his national service with the Ghana Education Service. He completed an MPhil in plant breeding at the Department of Applied Biology at the University of Cambridge on a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Shared Scholarship. In November 1987, he returned to Ghana and worked for two years in the Department of Crop Science at the University of Ghana, before returning to the University of Cambridge in October 1989 as a Commonwealth Scholar for his PhD research in the laboratory of John Barrett in the Department of Genetics, which he completed in June 1993. Following his PhD, Danquah worked as a research scientist at Plant Breeding International in Cambridge, where he researched maize-wheat intercrosses and contributed to the international barley genome mapping project. In February 1994, he was appointed lecturer in the Department of Crop Science at the University of Ghana. He was promoted to senior lecturer in 2001, associate professor in 2004 and full professor in 2007. He held the positions of Head of the Department of Crop Science from 2005 to 2006, and Dean of International Programmes from 2006 to 2009. Danquah’s research centres on genetic diversity in crop plants and their associated pests, with an emphasis on molecular genetics and biotechnology for crop improvement. He also focuses on farmer's knowledge and plant breeding, technologies for food security in Africa, and training the next generation of research scientists. From 2000-2001, he developed Simple Sequence Repeats (Microsatellites) for Echinochloa species as a Visiting Scientist at the Long Ashton Research Station (UK). He was also a Visiting Scientist at Cornell University in May 2005 and May 2006, and partnered with them to set up the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement in 2007. His teaching has included Introductory Genetics, Principles of Biotechnology, Genetics and Plant Breeding, Molecular Genetics and Population Genetics in the College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences. He has co-supervised more than 20 post-graduate and PhD students.