We are pleased to announce that Dr. Dino J. Martins has accepted an offer from the Board of TBI (Kenya) Ltd. to serve as Chief Executive Officer of TBI (Kenya). The offer was made following full consultation with, and enthusiastic support from, TBI Kenya’s key partners: Stony Brook University, the Stony Brook Foundation, and [...]
TBI has been honored to host Dr. Deborah Lindell of Case Western Reserve University for the last 8 months during her Fulbright Fellowship in Turkana. Dr. Lindell has been working on developing a Nursing BSN program at the Turkana University College (TUC), as well as teaching TUC students, conducting research into nursing in Turkana county [...]
March 22nd is World Water Day and this year the international focus is on groundwater. This is a precious resource whose importance is increasing as the impacts of climate change become more significant. We feel this acutely in TBI Ileret where groundwater is critical to our operations. In 2021, we were able to decarbonize [...]
Paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer Isaiah Nengo, associate Director of the Turkana Basin Institute and Director for Research and Science at the Turkana Basin Institute passed away on 23 January at the age of 60. He was passionately dedicated to the study of Miocene hominids in Turkana, Kenya and his fieldwork led to the [...]
2021 was an exciting year for sustainability at TBI. We made great strides towards improving our environmental sustainability by increasing investments in clean energy. Over all, we installed over 50 kWp of solar panels, which can generate a cumulative 330 kW of power daily and we installed over 100 kWh of battery storage. This [...]
James Alkerech was a herder who spent most of his time taking care of his father’s livestock. Life in Fora, located in the remote area of Ileret Ward, has livestock keeping as the primary economic activity. This area is also characterized by frequent conflict over grazing land. In 2018, after a particularly fierce exchange, [...]
World-renowned paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard E. Leakey, chair of the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) and a professor in the Stony Brook University Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences died January 2 at the age of 77. Leakey devoted the majority of his life to research on human origins, conservation of [...]
On Sunday 2nd January, we lost a true warrior, an individual so large in presence that he left a void that can never be filled. He has been described as iconic, and a force of nature, but to us he was Richard, Dad, and Babu. As a family, we are enormously grateful for the [...]
Martin Kirinya and Emmanuel Aipa showcase fossils in the TBI booth at the Tobong'u Lore Festival 2021 The Tobong’u Lore cultural festival is an annual event hosted by the Turkana County Government in order to promote peace, indigenous culture and tourism within the region. This brings together local and international groups lending [...]
The excitement that Alex Chege had upon securing the Baldwin Fellowship has its roots in his journey. Connecting the dots from when he was young, it isn't by chance that he is now undertaking the Ecology and Evolution PhD Program at Stony Brook University under the mentorship of Dr. Catherine Markham and Dr. Richard [...]
Winfred Wambui Mbogo is a Kenyan lady who is very passionate about human evolution. Her journey began in 2010 when she enrolled at the University of Nairobi to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology. She realized that anthropology was misconceived in Kenya and rarely did students get encouraged to pursue the course. [...]
TBI Community Development Manager, Joanne Velo (L) With Local ECD assistant Esther (C) and Rotary Muthaiga's Lead Projects Manager, Kanyana Muriuki At The Kaikol Event Rotary Cupertino visited Napudet in Turkana County on invitation by Prof. Isaiah Nengo. Kaikol is a remote village in Turkana Central, 45 km south-east of Lodwar Town. It [...]
Preparators from the National Museums of Kenya at the Ileret research facility of the Turkana Basin Institute, starting manual preparation and supplementing the field consolidation (chemical hardening) of Loxodonta adaurora cranium KNM-ER 63642. From left to right: Cliff Onyango, Robert Moru and Christopher Kiarie. Image credit: Steve Jabo, Smithsonian Institution A remarkably well-preserved [...]
The students together with their facilitators from Ileret's hydroponics training As part of the Water Energy for Food Programme Funded Project in Ileret, we have been conducting training in Hydroponic Farming for local community members. In June this year, we conducted public participation meetings to let people know about the opportunity and [...]
This summer, the Turkana Basin Institute in association with Stony Brook University’s Department of Geosciences inaugurated the new Luminescence Dating Research Laboratory. Currently the only one of its kind on the U.S. East Coast, the establishment of this new facility was led by Assistant Professor Marine Frouin, a specialist in geochronology and luminescence dating, who joined [...]
The Turkana Basin Institute has joined the project Consolidating the Future through Mastering the Deep Past (CONFMAP), led by archaeologist Sonia Harmand of Stony Brook University and TBI. The project is funded by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and aims to improve access to paleosciences for marginalized populations while raising awareness in Kenyan of the value of the prehistoric archaeological heritage of Turkana County in northern Kenya.
TBI has been organizing a number of football tournaments in Ileret to keep the youth engaged and active during this long school hiatus due to COVID-19. With schools closed indefinitely, students were sent back to their villages with little opportunity for engagement and activity, leaving them vulnerable to early marriages, teenage pregnancies, and drug [...]
A new project will expand TBI's hydroponic gardening technology throughout the arid Turkana Basin region, bringing fresh produce to local communities.
The NSF Frontier Research in Earth Sciences program (FRES) has funded the Turkana Miocene Project proposal to the tune of ~$2.7 million. The grant will fund research over 4 years to better understand how climate change and tectonics interacted to shape the evolution of the environment in which the ancestors of humans and our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangs emerged in Africa.
Smithsonian Magazine has named the "Decade’s Biggest Discoveries in Human Evolution." Fourth on the list is the discovery in 2011 of the world's oldest stone tools, made by a team of archeologists led by Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis of Stony Brook University: "When you think of technology today, you might picture computers, smartphones, and [...]