Stephen Kiama

Stephen Gitahi Kiama (born 1964) is a Kenyan veterinary surgeon and academic who, effective 3 January 2020, serves as the 8th vice chancellor of the University of Nairobi, the oldest public university of Kenya.

As of 2020, Kiama has spend the last 34 years of his adult life at UoN, either as a student, academic employee or university administrator. He is credited with raising, in collaboration with others, a total of KSh1.018 billion (approximately US$10.2 million), from donors, sponsors and well-wishers towards university and related programs.

As of January 2020, Professor Kiama had supervised 12 PhD and 14 MSc students who completed their studies at Makerere University, Rhodes University and the University of Nairobi. He was also actively supervising three more at the time. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and is credited with over 140 journal and conference publications.

According to his online curriculum vitae, he was born in Othaya, Nyeri County in central Kenya, in 1964. After attending local elementary and secondary schools, he was admitted to the University of Nairobi (UoN), in 1986. He graduated in 1990, with a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine. He followed that with a Master of Veterinary Anatomy, in 1995, also at UoN. Later in 2001, he graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in Structural Biology from the University of Bern in Switzerland.