Alumni of the Month

Joyce Kisamo is an engineer currently working with the Ministry of Energy (since 2016), but who has worked for the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) for most of her professional life since 1991. She is registered with the Engineering Registration Board of Tanzania and is also a member of the Institute of Engineers Tanzania. She was born in Mwanga district, Kilimanjaro region on the 19th of February 1965. She had her secondary education at Bwiru Girls School in Mwanza (for the ‘ordinary level’ certificate of secondary education from 1979 to 1982) and at Jangwani Girls High School in Dar es Salaam (for the ‘advanced level’ certificate of advanced secondary education) from 1983-1985. Her major school subjects included Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics. She entered the University of Dar es Salaam, registering at the Faculty of Engineering in 1986 for a four-year engineering degree programme, specifically in chemical and process engineering, and earned a BSc (honours) in 1991. Then, as now, the first-year courses were designed to equip students with the basics for an engineer in general, before proceeding thereafter into specific curricular specialisations and branches—civil, mechanical, water-resource and, in her case, chemical-and-process engineering. Joyce did enjoy her branch of study, which stimulated into her a zeal for further study and higher feats of engineering sooner or later

On completion of the bachelor’s programme at the University of Dar es Salaam in 1991, Ms. Kisamo joined a state-owned Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), a National Oil Company whose major thrust over time has been to engage in the exploration, development, production and distribution of oil, gas and related services, to facilitate a fair trading environment, to safeguard the national supply of petroleum products and, at the same time, to develop quality and safety standards to protect people, property and the environment. From 1993 to 1994, Joyce was admitted at the University of Leeds in the UK for a postgraduate course in the integrated design of chemical plants, from which she earned a Master’s degree award in this area in 1994 and returned thereafter to TPDC for more formal work engagements and assignments. She has moved up the ladder from Officer Grade-II she was in 1991, through various stages to Principal Research and Projects Development Officer (2004- 2007), to Senior Principal Research and Projects Development Officer (2007-2010), to Acting Director of Marketing and Investments (2011), to Director of Marketing and Investments (2012-May 2014), to Acting Director of Downstream Operations (May 2014-June 2015), to Technical Advisor with the Oil and Gas Advisory Bureau, OGAB, within the President’s Office (2015-2018), finally, to the present position of Assistant Commissioner for Petroleum Development (2019 to date).

In the light of a fairly smooth occupational mobility through the ranks, one can appreciate the level of trust and responsibility Joyce must have commanded over a long period of her engagement with a nationally vital state organisation (TPDC) and the nationally sensitive government ministry of Energy. She has apparently ‘tasted and tested’ all areas of professional concern in the wider arena of energy exploitation, system design and strategies of chemical and process engineering. For her, these areas range from managing natural gas projects and coordinating research, through project identification and implementation activities, supervising technical evaluations and plant/equipment designs, guiding formulation of strategies for utilization, to marketing of products, participating in the selection of consultants, contractors, processes, materials, equipment, etc. In short, both within TPDC and within the more encompassing Ministry of Energy, Joyce Kisamo has been one among those in the topnotch leadership within the powerhouse of thinking, testing, innovating and executing

Apart from her statutory responsibilities, Mrs. Kisamo has attended so many working and site meetings, as well as conferences and symposia on themes related to her profession. Also, she has conducted numerous consultancies in solving the many questions and issues facing the energy sector and social development in general. She has produced a number of works of practical implications and utility value for innovation. They include:

• “Preparation of activated carbon from coconut shells” (1991); • “LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] utilization in Tanzania” (1992);

• “Computational modeling of an oil [heavy-fuel oil] fired cylindrical furnace” (1994);

• “Natural gas vehicles” (1996); • “Industrial natural gas demand in Dar es Salaam and Tanga”; and

• “Compressed/piped natural gas project for households, institutions and vehicles in Dar es Salaam” (2007).

Lastly, and with full appreciation on the part of the University, Eng. Kisamo has served the University in at least two visible and important capacities, namely as a member of the University Council, the governing body of the institution, and as an external examiner to academic programmes in the College of Engineering and Technology, CoET. The University—her alma mater—wishes her all the best.