Jean-Baka Domelevo Entfellner is the Head of Data & Research Methods at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya. He joined ILRI in 2017 as a Bioinformatics scientist with the BecA-ILRI Hub. Prior to that, Jean-Baka was a senior lecturer in Computer Science at the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa), and a postdoctoral fellow with the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI). As a postdoctoral fellow, Jean-Baka worked for the NIH-funded H3ABioNet project, part of the broader Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative.
With a formal education in computer science, mathematics and signal processing, Jean-Baka took a one-year sabbatical in 2006-2007 to lecture in Niamey (Niger) and Yaoundé (Cameroon), in the framework of a project aimed at developing higher education and research capacity in mathematics and computer science in Africa. Back in France, he conducted his PhD studies in Montpellier under the supervision of Prof. Olivier Gascuel, on a topic combining phylogenetics and statistical modelling of protein families.
Jean-Baka’s current responsibilities ILRI include overseeing its research data ecosystem, from data collection in the field or in the labs, through data analysis on desktops or on ILRI's High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure, all the way to FAIR, open data dissemination. In particular, Jean-Baka leads ILRI's bioinformatics platform, providing support ILRI scientists and their collaborators in terms of computational analysis of their “omics” data (phenotypic or genomic in the broad sense), as well as designing and implementing capacity building activities in bioinformatics.
Born and raised in Paris, France, Jean-Baka is an alumnus of the prestigious École Normale Supérieure (ENS Cachan, France). Prior to his PhD (University of Montpellier, France), he obtained a BSc and an MSc in computer science from the University of Rennes (France), in addition to a BA in English studies also from the University of Rennes, and an MA in English studies from the University of Montpellier.
My Publications
Complete genome sequencing and comparative phylogenomics of nine African swine fever virus (ASFV) isolates of the virulent East African p72 genotype IX without viral sequence enrichment
Molecular and serological diagnosis of multiple bacterial zoonoses in febrile outpatients in Garissa County, north-eastern Kenya
