Sylvester holds an MSc in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. He currently contributes to the research, communication, dissemination and capacity building work of the Foresight and Policy Team within the People, Policies and Institutions (PPI) Program at ILRI and the CGIAR Policy Innovations and Scaling for Impact Programs.
He has over five years of applied research experience from CGIAR centers, with a strong focus on agricultural economics, advocacy for evidence-based policy, and sustainable food systems. He previously worked with the International Potato Center (CIP), ICRISAT and Emerge Center for Innovations-Africa (ECI-Africa). His expertise includes designing and implementing technology adoption and impact evaluation studies; seed systems product market segmentation; developing investment action plans for scaling agricultural technologies; capacity building of civil society organizations; and stock-take of livestock emergency and pastoral resilience interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa. He also has field work experience in several countries, including Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. Sylvester is proficient in advanced econometric analysis using Stata & R. His work has contributed to significant policy-shaping briefs and several published peer-reviewed journal papers. He received an award for best sweetpotato scientific paper in 2022 from CIP.