Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Makerere University and a leading researcher in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science. She serves as the Chief Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and a Senior Researcher at the Makerere University Software Systems Center.
Her work focuses on applying machine learning to agriculture and health, addressing challenges in developing countries. She has contributed significantly to natural language processing, creating data resources for underfunded Ugandan languages, and using computer vision for disease diagnosis. Joyce holds a PhD in Computer Science from Eindhoven University of Technology, a Master’s degree from Makerere University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Mbarara University of Science and Technology. She also served as the General Chairperson for Data Science Africa 2020.