Dr Wanja Nyingi-Moseti, Chevalier (Ordre des Palmes Académiques)

Freshwater Ichthyologist and Aquatic Ecologist 
Head, Freshwater Hub

Sea Around Us - Indian Ocean 
School of Biological Sciences 
University of Western Australia (UWA) 
wanja.nyingi@uwa.edu.au  
Google Scholar 
Wikipedia 

Dorothy Wanja Nyingi-Moseti (known as Wanja) is a freshwater biologist and ichthyologist. Before joining UWA, she worked for 25 years as a researcher at the National Museums of Kenya, carrying out extensive ecological research on freshwater fish biodiversity in Kenya. She became the Head of Ichthyology in 2009 and published the first guide to freshwater fish species of Kenya, which earned her a place in the timeline of women in science in 2013. 

Wanja is the founder and coordinator of the Kenya Wetlands Biodiversity Research Team (KENWEB), a multi-disciplinary team of regional and international scientists specializing in tropical wetlands and aquatic ecosystems. She is a member and affiliate of several professional associations and is currently a member of the Multidisciplinary Expert Panel of the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).   

She received the Knighthood of the Order of Academic Palms by the Republic of France in 2016, for her work on Fish Biodiversity and Aquatic Ecology. In 2023, a Monogean parasite of cyprinid fishes of Morocco was named in her honour: Gyrodactylus nyingiae n. sp. 

Wanja has a background in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Montpellier, France and hydrobiology from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Her professional interests include freshwater fish diversity, fisheries, aquatic ecology and wetland protection and management. 

She is leading the freshwater fisheries research interests of the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean group.