By Jimmy Siyasa
“What can I offer to the Lord for His goodness to me? I will lift the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,” asks Psalms 116:12–13.
When one listens to the story of Dr. Livingstone Mutyaba, one can quietly hear him re-echo this scripture. And why is this so? In late 2025, Mutyaba earned his PhD in Agricultural Economics from Egerton University, Nairobi, Kenya.
At the dawn of 2026, Mutyaba was appointed the new Dean of the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Faculty of Agricultural Sciences. He succeeds Dr. Rosemary Bulyaba, a Senior Lecturer and researcher at the university. Bulyaba was appointed the second dean of the faculty in 2022.
Prior to his new appointment, Mutyaba has been serving as the Head of the Department of Natural Resources Management and Agribusiness at the UCU Faculty of Agricultural Sciences. He is also the CEO of the UCU Holdings, the university’s business and investment arm.
A war in the early 1980s in central Uganda disrupted Mutyaba’s elementary education, to the extent that he had to relocate from his school in Luwero district to Bishop’s East Primary School in Mukono District.
From Bishop’s East, he joined the neighboring Bishop’s Senior School. Mutyaba’s post-secondary school education took him to Bukalasa Agricultural College in central Uganda, where he earned a Diploma in Animal Husbandry, launching him into the workforce of several dairy farms.
He has, since, garnered practical experience in working with rural Ugandan farmers, planning, designing and managing farms, writing agribusiness plans, training farmers, as well as community development workers.
Mutyaba later attained a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Master of Science in Development Economics, with the qualifications affording him employment opportunities in both technical and administrative positions, including at UCU, where he has worked since September 2011. His first posting at the university was as the manager of Student Skills Development and Placements.
However, in all this, Mutyaba’s professional and academic fortunes seemed to have truly changed when, courtesy of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture and the African Economic Research Consortium, he earned a PhD scholarship.
“It was an exciting opportunity,” he recalls. However, the excitement is only half of the story; the other half is the process of completing the PhD.
“Anyone with a PhD will tell you they considered dropping out at some point. Not once, not twice, but many times,” Mutyaba says.
“Why? The pressure, rigorous nature of research, high academic standards and the expectations; and various frustrations along the way,” he narrated during his thanksgiving ceremony at the end of 2025.
In his new role, Mutyaba is not only determined to boost enrollment for the faculty, but he intends to build on the momentum he set during his PhD journey to drive research and innovation. The agricultural economist understands well how the economy, education, research and planning intersect to make real-world, positive change. And this is part of the knowledge he applied in a cage fish farming project he undertook and was partly sponsored by UCU Partners.
For his achievements thus far, Mutyaba, wishes his mother, Joy Nakamya and father, Wilson Katende, were here to be witnesses to the milestones. Nevertheless, his Christian faith birthed on May 22, 2002, “when I gave my life to Christ during a youth convention” reassures him of their heavenly smile at his achievements.
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