Dr. Damien Shumbusha holds a PhD degree in Plant Breeding from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; MSc in Plant Breeding and Seed Systems from Makerere University, Uganda; BSc in Crop Production and Horticulture from the University of Rwanda. Just after his BSc studies, he served as Coordinator of CARITAS, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) of the Catholic Church in Rwanda. One year later, he joined RAB (the former ISAR) in 2006, as a research assistant. After successfully completing his MSc studies in 2012, he was re-integrated in RAB, where he was leading the National Sweetpotato Research Program, at the same time Principal Investigator of research projects “Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa-Rwanda (SASHA) and” AGRA funded-Rwanda sweetpotato breeding project, Grant No: 2009 PASS 028″. In spite of the AGRA funded project in 2013, he developed and officially released six new high yielding sweetpotato varieties namely: RW11-17, RW11-1860, RW11-2419, RW11-2560, RW11-2910 and RW11-4923. He has published number of original papers in peer-reviewed journals. After successfully completing his PhD studies, Damien was re-integrated in RAB staff, and since then he is serving as a Sweetpotato program Leader. Damien participated in various short-term trainings in Africa and Europe. He has a considerable wide range experience in demand-led plant breeding, crop production focusing on mixed crop-livestock farming systems. He contributed to education through lecturing two courses (i) Farming systems and Agriculture extension and (ii) Agriculture value chain, at Protestant Institute for Arts and Social Sciences (PIASS). He is a member of the African Potato Association (APA) since 2012.