Marta Vicente-Crespo is a developmental Biologist by training, dedicated to building research capacity in Africa. She has over ten (10) years of considerable experience in research capacity strengthening at a number of African universities and research centers and is passionate about improving the quality of higher education and research training in Africa. She was the founding director of the Institute of Biomedical Research and the Grants Management Office at Kampala International University – Western Campus, Uganda, and in 2013 co-founded DrosAfrica, an initiative that promotes the use of Drosophila melanogaster as experimental model in African biomedical research. She joined the CARTA Secretariat in October 2018, where she is the Program Manager overseeing the training component of the Consortium, overseeing the support, training and progress of over 220 fellows, 137 of whom have graduated and moved on to take postdoctoral awards and research grants, within and outside of the Consortium. Her goal is to continue supporting research capacity strengthening in African institutions and programs that facilitate research training for African scholars who want to remain in the continent to work on locally relevant research questions.