Sylvia Adjoa Mitchell

Dr Mitchell holds a double major BSc in Geography and Botany and PhD in Biotechnology from The University of the West Indies, Mona. She is a Senior Lecturer at The Caribbean Centre for Research in the Bioscience, Biotechnology Unit, Faculty of Science and Technology, UWI. Along with lecturing courses in plant biochemistry, plant biotechnology and several others, she is the research leader of the Medicinal Plant Biotechnology Group which she started in 1999. Prior, she worked 7 years at the Scientific Research Council and 2 years at the Sugar Industry Research Institute, both in Jamaica. Dr Mitchell was born in Ghana. Her family came to Jamaica when she was nine. She is experienced in plant tissue culture (>40 yrs), ethnobotany, ethnobiotechnology and technology commercialization. Her area of focus is developing medicinal biotechnologysolutions to provide local farmers with c;ean planting material using micropropagation, and how to use Jamaican-grown plants in a sustainable manner. Many plants have been researched by the team. Dr Mitchell was named in February 2019 as one of the 70+ UWI Women of Distinction and in 2023 as a Phenomenal Woman in Agriculture by the Jamaica Agricultural Society. She believes we can harness the potential of plant biodiversity for sustainable and beneficial utilization through judicious use of biotechnology, a goal towards which she is diligently working.