He is also a Fellow of theMars Advanced Research Institute; Senior Fellow, Plant Sciences, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Davis; Distinguished Fellow, the World Agroforestry Centre.
He is a globally respected expert in plant science, plant breeding, genetics, molecular biology and agroforestry systems. He led the global cacao genome project and is the founder of the African Orphan Crops Consortium and the African Plant Breeding Academy, which will sequence, assemble and annotate 101 pan-African food crops, place all of the data in the public domain and train 150 plant scientists in modern plant breeding technology.
He collects and restores early American motorcycles and modern European and Japanese Superbikes.