Rose Mutiso Wins 2025 Erna Hamburger Award

Rose Mutiso is working, amongst different important challenges, to make sure that everybody in Africa has entry to inexpensive and dependable electrical energy on demand, in methods which are sustainable and climate-resilient. Her efforts have earned her this 12 months’s Erna Hamburger Award, conferred by the EPFL-WISH (Women In Science and Humanities) Foundation to honor feminine scientists who’re reworking their fields and bringing about constructive change.

“I am honored and humbled to join this distinguished legacy of women scientists who have pushed scientific boundaries to drive societal progress, and this award reaffirms my commitment to elevating African and other underrepresented voices in shaping the future of science and technology,” reacts the winner.

Mutiso’s achievements mirror her ability in pulling collectively ideas from a number of disciplines. She holds a PhD in supplies science, with a thesis on purposes in nanotechnology, and has performed analysis on polymer physics. She additionally has a eager curiosity in social points, which stems from her childhood: her father was a geography professor and her mom labored within the public sector. Building on these experiences, she determined early on to focus her efforts on bettering entry to scrub vitality.

“I’m trained as a scientist and an engineer, but because of my liberal arts background, I also have a strong interest in society, on making an impact,” she mentioned in an interview for Dartmouth College, the place she earned her bachelor’s diploma. “My job is connecting evidence and research to inform policy and decision-making around energy, energy poverty and energy transitions in poor countries. These are all topics that have strong technical underpinnings.”

Technological leapfrogging

In her acceptance speech for the Erna Hamburger Award, Mutiso can be discussing the idea of technological leapfrogging – the method by which creating nations skip conventional growth levels or particular incumbent applied sciences and undertake newer approaches. Yet she believes that leapfrogging narratives are too usually constructed on hype, misdiagnosed issues and a reluctance to face arduous truths about poverty, infrastructure gaps and structural inequality.

“In this lecture, I’ll draw from my experiences working on energy transitions and innovation policy across the Global North and South to unpack what’s missing in our conversations about technology and development,” writes Mutiso. “Why do promising innovations so often fall short of impact? What makes some succeed against the odds? And what does it take to ensure that new technologies actually serve the people who need them most?”

High-profile profession

Mutiso, now 39, has led a exceptional profession. She is the founder and government director of the African Tech Futures Lab, a brand new institute that helps decision-makers throughout the continent navigate rising science and know-how throughout vitality, local weather, AI and digital methods.

Previously, she was a analysis director on the Energy for Growth Hub, a world assume tank exploring challenges related to clear vitality. In this position, she labored to handle the technological and coverage points associated to vitality, the atmosphere and innovation in North America, southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Mutiso nonetheless contributes to the Energy for Growth Hub as a science advisor.

She can also be a co-founder of the Nairobi-based Mawazo Institute, which helps early-career feminine scientists in Africa by offering doctoral analysis funding {and professional} growth assist. The Institute is predicated on the idea that science and know-how may help enhance the situations for girls in Africa and promote their position in society.

In the United States, Mutiso is a senior fellow of the Conceptual Investigations Unit at Stanford University. She additionally labored on the Office of International Climate and Clean Energy inside the US Department of Energy within the 2010s.

Her TED talks on the way forward for vitality and the local weather in Africa have been seen over 3.6 million instances, and she or he usually writes articles for Substack.

Giving African individuals a voice

“We are proud to give the 2025 Erna Hamburger Award to Rose Mutiso in recognition of her visionary leadership in promoting equal access to energy and her efforts to ensure African voices feature prominently in scientific efforts and global policies aimed at finding sustainable responses to the most pressing challenges facing our planet,” says Prof. Aleksandra Radenovic, president of the EPFL-WISH Foundation.

Mutiso is the twentieth winner of the Erna Hamburger Award, which was launched in 2006 to tell apart main influential feminine scientists and engineers. The EPFL-WISH Foundation is an impartial group created by feminine professors at EPFL to encourage ladies to pursue careers in scientific and technical fields. The award is called after Dr. Erna Hamburger, the primary feminine full professor at EPFL and an ongoing inspiration for college kids and researchers alike.