Romain Murenzi served as the Executive Director of TWAS until the end of November 2023, overseeing the administration of Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World, the InterAcademy Partnership and GenderInSITE. Murenzi initially joined TWAS in April 2011 for five years. He then spent 14 months at UNESCO, Paris, directing the Division of Science Policy and Capacity Building. On 1 September 2017 he was transferred back to TWAS.

Previously he served as Rwanda's Minister of Education, Science and Technology and Scientific Research and as Minister in the President's Office in Charge of Science and Technology, and Scientific Research, with responsibilities including Information and Communication Technologies. In 2009 he was a senior scholar at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Center for Science, Technology and Sustainable Development; he served as Director from 2010–2011.

Murenzi holds a Bachelor of Science from the National University of Burundi, a Master of Science and a PhD from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium; a Master of Law degree in Information Technology and Telecommunication (2013) and an honorary doctoral degree conferred upon him by the University of Johannesburg. Murenzi is an elected Fellow of TWAS and of AAS.

He has chaired the UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel on the Technology Bank for least developed countries and in 2016 he was a member of the 10-member group appointed by the UN Secretary General to support the Technology Facilitation Mechanism. In 2015 and 2016, he served as a member of the International Telecommunication Union-UNESCO Broadband Commission for Digital Development, and in 2019 he served as a member of the External Science and Technology Advisory Board of the International Monetary Fund.

Prof. Murenzi represented UNESCO in the Governing Board of Alliance of International Science Organizations (ANSO) and in the Steering Committee of the ICTP East African Institute for Fundamental Research (EAIFR).

His research interests include natural sciences: “groups and phase spaces links between quantum physics and signal processing” and social sciences: “science policy and science diplomacy”.