Rose Mutiso Wins 2025 Erna Hamburger Award

Rose Mutiso is working, among other significant challenges, to ensure that everyone in Africa has access to affordable and reliable electricity on demand, in ways that are sustainable and climate-resilient. Her efforts have earned her this year's Erna Hamburger Award, conferred by the EPFL-WISH (Women In Science and Humanities) Foundation to honor female scientists who are transforming their fields and bringing about positive change.

"I am honored and humbled to join this distinguished legacy of women scientists who have pushed scientific boundaries to drive societal progress, and this award reaffirms my commitment to elevating African and other underrepresented voices in shaping the future of science and technology," reacts the winner.

Mutiso's achievements reflect her skill in pulling together concepts from several disciplines. She holds a PhD in materials science, with a thesis on applications in nanotechnology, and has conducted research on polymer physics. She also has a keen interest in social issues, which stems from her childhood: her father was a geography professor and her mother worked in the public sector. Building on these experiences, she decided early on to focus her efforts on improving access to clean energy.

"I'm trained as a scientist and an engineer, but because of my liberal arts background, I also have a strong interest in society, on making an impact," she said in an interview for Dartmouth College, where she earned her bachelor's degree. "My job is connecting evidence and research to inform policy and decision-making around energy, energy poverty and energy transitions in poor countries. These are all topics that have strong technical underpinnings."

Technological leapfrogging

In her acceptance speech for the Erna Hamburger Award, Mutiso will be discussing the concept of technological leapfrogging - the process by which developing countries skip traditional development stages or specific incumbent technologies and adopt newer approaches. Yet she believes that leapfrogging narratives are too often built on hype, misdiagnosed problems and a reluctance to face hard truths about poverty, infrastructure gaps and structural inequality.

"In this lecture, I'll draw from my experiences working on energy transitions and innovation policy across the Global North and South to unpack what's missing in our conversations about technology and development," writes Mutiso. "Why do promising innovations so often fall short of impact? What makes some succeed against the odds? And what does it take to ensure that new technologies actually serve the people who need them most?"

High-profile career

Mutiso, now 39, has led a remarkable career. She is the founder and executive director of the African Tech Futures Lab, a new institute that helps decision-makers across the continent navigate emerging science and technology across energy, climate, AI and digital systems.

Previously, she was a research director at the Energy for Growth Hub, a global think tank exploring challenges associated with clean energy. In this role, she worked to address the technological and policy issues related to energy, the environment and innovation in North America, southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Mutiso still contributes to the Energy for Growth Hub as a science advisor.

She is also a co-founder of the Nairobi-based Mawazo Institute, which supports early-career female scientists in Africa by providing doctoral research funding and professional development support. The Institute is based on the belief that science and technology can help improve the conditions for women in Africa and promote their role in society.

In the United States, Mutiso is a senior fellow of the Conceptual Investigations Unit at Stanford University. She also worked at the Office of International Climate and Clean Energy within the US Department of Energy in the 2010s.

Her TED talks on the future of energy and the climate in Africa have been viewed over 3.6 million times, and she regularly writes articles for Substack.

Giving African people a voice

"We are proud to give the 2025 Erna Hamburger Award to Rose Mutiso in recognition of her visionary leadership in promoting equal access to energy and her efforts to ensure African voices feature prominently in scientific efforts and global policies aimed at finding sustainable responses to the most pressing challenges facing our planet," says Prof. Aleksandra Radenovic, president of the EPFL-WISH Foundation.

Mutiso is the 20th winner of the Erna Hamburger Award, which was introduced in 2006 to distinguish leading influential female scientists and engineers. The EPFL-WISH Foundation is an independent organization created by female professors at EPFL to encourage women to pursue careers in scientific and technical fields. The award is named after Dr. Erna Hamburger, the first female full professor at EPFL and an ongoing inspiration for students and researchers alike.