Dr. Samson M. Kamunya has been the Director, Tea Research Institute of Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization, Kericho, where he had been overseen the general administration and management of the Institute, implementing Organization’s policies, strategies and plans and developing and implementing tea programmes and projects. He is also responsible for pursuing partnerships and collaborations between national and international organizations with similar interests in tea research, validation and commercialization of innovations and technologies bearing in mind climate change adaption and mitigation strategies as well as market dynamics at global level. As a plant breeder, he has developed over 1000 new tea clones, which are currently in different stages of evaluation for high yields, high quality diversified novel tea products and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Of these tea clones, he has released, for commercial use, fifteen (15) high yielding tea cultivars suitable for manufacture novel specialty tea products, including orthodox purple, green, yellow, black, oolong and white teas and silvery needles, besides the traditional black Cut, Crash and Curl (CTC) tea, for which Kenya is globally known. He has broad range of interest on development and integration of biotechnological tools such as marked-assisted breeding/clonal selection, diversity studies and DNA fingerprinting for protection and conservation of plant varieties aimed at sustainable agricultural productivity in Kenya. He has over 25 years of experience in scientific leadership, tea improvement, management and conservation. He is currently leading the KALRO tea research team in the Global Low Carbon Tea – Triangular Cooperation in Tea Value Chain in Kenya (GLI-TEA Kenya), focussing on Research on adoption at production stage of suitable low-carbon technologies and practices for Kenya tea in close collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and Tea Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (TRICAAS).

Before joining KALRO, he worked as Scientific Officer with the Centre for Agriculture Biosciences International (CABI), Africa Regional Office, on biocontrol of conifer aphids and integrated control of Leucaena psyllid.

Samson holds BSc (Forestry), M.Phil (Forest Genetics), Moi University and D.Phil (Agronomy-Plant Breeding), Egerton University. He has also acquired further training in Design of Plant Breeding Programmes, Use of Molecular Markers in Plant Breeding, Integrated Quality Management, Participatory Approaches in Genetic Resources Management and Advanced Approaches to Participatory Crop Improvement at the International Agricultural Centre, Wageningen, and The Netherlands with the support of The Netherlands Fellowships Programme (NUFFIC). He undertook his PhD thesis research at the Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT), Palampur, and Himachal Pradesh, India after winning an award of Fellowship for Postgraduate Studies as governed by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Third World Academies of Science (TWAS). He has also undergone management and leadership programmes in Senior Management Course and Strategic Leadership Programme at the Kenya School of Government, and Leadership Program for Agricultural Research and Development facilitated by African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD).

He has published widely and participated in many national and international workshops and conferences. He is the Chairman, Institute Scientific and Technical Committee and Chief Editor to the Technical Advisory and Editorial Committee for the Tea Research Institute’s publications. He is also an Associate Editor, Beverage Plant Research (BPR), 20221 to 2024 of TRICAAS. Currently, he is the chairman, Plant Breeders Association of Kenya (PBAK) by virtue of which he is a member to the National Performance Trials Committee (NPTC) of Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) as well as the National Variety Release Committee (NVRC) and Seed Regulations Committee (SRC), which deals with the release of new crop varieties and regulations of seed industry, respectively, in Kenya. He is a member of European Specialty Tea Association (ESTA). He engages in mentoring students and young scientists from mid-level colleges and universities besides co-supervising MSc and PhD students. He also participates in capacity building of junior, middle and senior level managers in the African tea industry.