Dr. Telemala

telemala

Dr. Joseph P. Telemala

Lecturer

Academic Profile

Joseph Philipo Telemala is a lecturer in the Department of Informatics and Information Technology, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town, Master in Computer Science from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India, and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Dar es Salaam. 

Teaching Subjects and Research Interests

Dr. Telemala has over 10 years of University teaching experience. His research interests are broadly in Information Retrieval (IR), specifically in multilingual information retrieval (MLIR), focusing on Kiswahili.

His teaching subjects include Information Storage and Retrieval, Information Systems Analysis and Design, Software Engineering and Project Management, Distributed Systems, and Geo-informatics.

Research Projects

  1. Farm-Oriented Open Data (FOOD) to Improve Swahili Agricultural Information Search Using Knowledge Graph, (ongoing, March 2023 — March 2025). Role: PI.
  2. ACHE-Project — Tanzania Climate Sensitive Waterborne Diseases Dataset for Predictive Machine Learning, (ongoing, Feb 2023 — Dec 2024). Role: Co-PI.
  3. AI4MoreCrops Project — Enhancing Farm -scale Crop Yield Predictions using Machine Learning Models for Internet of Agro- Things in Tanzania, (ongoing, Sep 2022 — March 2024). Role: Team member.
  4. YEESI Lab Project — Morogoro Youth Empowerment through Establishment of Social Innovation (YEESI) lab for problem-centered training in machine vision, (2021 — 2023). Role: Course facilitator, YEESI 101 – Introduction to Problem Solving using Python.
  5. EPINAV (2016). Role: Research assistant to develop a crowdsourcing platform (Web-based and mobile text messages) where small-scale farmers can communicate their agricultural queries with extension officers and researchers. 

Publications

Dr. Telemala has worked and published several peer-reviewed papers in the areas of ICT4D, and information retrieval for Kiswahili. His publications are available on his Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and ORCID profiles.

Awards