SERVIR Profile of Phoebe Oduor
Name: Phoebe Oduor
Affiliation: SERVIR-E&SA
Role/Title: GHG Inventories and LULC Thematic Lead
Year you joined SERVIR: 2012
Please introduce yourself. What are you passionate about?
I'm a middle child with a first born complex. I don't know how that happened! I'm very passionate about achieving excellence in everything I do. Be it the small family things that I take up as a mother and a wife or the complex science things that I do every day. I love nature and love to travel. I'm very articulate in what I think and a lot of times speak my mind. I love my job, it challenges me and pushes me to new heights every day. And I love that what I do makes sense in solving or contributing to the issues faced by society today.
What initially attracted you to this field of work?
My attraction to this field was based on the endless possibilities of its real-life applications and the diversity of places where I could work. Geoscience is applicable in literally every field. Health, banking - you name it. It is a field that has over time broken many boundaries and I find such things very appealing.
What SERVIR activity are you currently working on?
In SERVIR-Eastern and Southern Africa, I work as the thematic lead for Land Use Land Cover and Greenhouse gases Inventories. My role is to provide technical expertise and guidance in the projects implemented on this subject, as well as transfer of capacity to peers and stakeholders in general.
How does your work generate positive change?
The work that I do is a catalyst for understanding and addressing many development issues. It helps institutions and governments get a better perspective of how their landscapes are changing and through this, they are able to know if they can maintain the status quo or 'spring' into action as far as conservation is concerned. It also provides indicators required for the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals, and is very useful in providing data for green indicators of our natural resources. For this, the measuring part of what we do is very crucial in monitoring environmental conditions and to plan for a sustainable future.