Role: Project Manager

Victoria is an experienced Project Manager, working in PR & Marketing & Education before her current post at UKCEH. She manages several large UK based and International projects, multi-sectoral & disciplinary, co-ordinating numerous and diverse stakeholders. Victoria’s role includes project planning, co-ordination and disseminating project outputs to the wider public, including private sector, academia and policy makers.

Role: Comms Officer

Karen is a comms officer for Future Climate for Africa, where she leads on design, including printed and online materials. She also supports on database management, management of web resources and logistical assistance for webinars and conferences. Before specialising in Knowledge Management, Karen was the project coordinator for the Kuyasa Clean Development Mechanism project, and project manager for the Hopefield Home Improvement project. Karen holds a Girl Friday diploma and a certificate in project management from the University of Stellenbosch Business School. Once upon a time, in a land far away, Karen played pool for Rhodes University’s social league team. Her current hobbies include gardening and knitting.

Role: Research Officer

Roy is a research officer for Future Climate for Africa. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Geography and Honours degree in Environmental Analysis and Management from the University of Pretoria. He has also obtained his Master’s degree in Climate Change and Sustainable Development from the University of Cape Town. In the past Roy has been involved in various research projects at the University of Cape Town relating to climate change in Africa. Most recently he worked in the African Climate and Development Initiative(ACDI) on the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR) project  where he worked with quantifying the local impacts of global warming on vulnerable sectors in 6 African countries. Outside of his research work Roy is passionate about music and worked as a PR and Media coordinator with OppiKoppi Music Festival between 2015-2018.

Role: Junior Project Manager

Tiffany is the Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) Junior Project Manager at SSN. Previously she worked in the Environmental Mangement Department at the City of Cape Town, facilitating and strenthening local and international partnerships for sustainable development. She holds a BA Honours in Environmental and Geographic Science from UCT and a BA degree from Rhodes University. She also aims to obtain her master’s degree in the next few years when she makes her mind up on what she wants to study. In her spare time you’ll find Tiffany in the mountains or in the ocean learning to surf.

Role: Knowledge Manager

Beth is a knowledge manager in the Future Climate for Africa programme. Her background in an LLM in Global Environment and Climate Change Law from University of Edinburgh and a MSc in Climate Change and Sustainable Development from University of Cape Town. Before joining SSN she was at the UNFCCC in the Adaptation Unit particularly focussing on the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform. Within South Africa she has worked on climate change related issues such as energy poverty research and adaptation. She is particularly interested in how vulnerable groups of women and local communities are affected by climate change and their potential to not only be victims but active change agents.

He is a lecturer at Gulu University Hoima Campus (Uganda) in the department of Agriculture and Environment and holds the position of a course coordinator. He has an MSc in Environment and Development from the University of Reading (UK) and a BA in Environmental Management from Makerere University (Uganda). His research priorities include environmental protection, livelihoods, climate change and international development. He has experience in environmental education, educating people on the best practices for environmental management and especially in the oil industry region (western Uganda). He has worked with various organizations in Uganda. He is a research assistant on the rural team of the HyCRISTAL, a project that is modeling the climate change impact on hydrology, urbanization and livelihoods. It is part of the bigger Future Climate For Africa project.

Role: Researcher

Camilla is a postdoctoral researcher with a passion for investigating wicked problems and my work focuses on natural resources and especially land management, climate change resilience, indigenous knowledge systems and disaster risk reduction/management in Sub Saharan Africa. Camilla is interested in interdisciplinary research, interactive teaching techniques and active learning for different disciplines. She is always looking for new academic adventures, consultancy opportunities and publications. Camilla is currently based at King’s College London, with teaching responsibilities at University of Northampton and research collaborations with University of Sussex.

Role: Researcher

Keith is head of the Atmospheric Processes and Parametrizations group. The group is responsible for the representation of physical processes in the Met Office Unified Model, including how we represent the atmospheric boundary layer, clouds and cloud-aerosol microphysics, radiative transfer in the atmosphere, moist atmospheric convection, orographic processes and land surface processes. He is also co-chair of the World Meteorological Organization’s Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE). 

Role: Early Career Researcher

Giresse is a Ph.D. student at the University of Yaounde Cameroon. Understanding drivers of convection in Central Africa marks his current research activities. This research deals with better understanding of AEJ component dynamic, their links with regional mid-tropospheric circulation “highs, divergent centers” and diabatic heating.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Thierry is a Ph.D. student at the  Laboratory of Environmental Modelling and Atmospheric Physics (University of Yaounde). His work is on the assessment of precipitation bias in UM over Central Africa. The work focuses on an assessment of the contribution of both local and large-scale circulation on precipitation biases in UM. It has been established that large-scale circulation also contributes remotely to regional precipitation variability over the region.

Role: Researcher

Lorenzo works on the interaction between moist convection and the atmospheric circulation in the tropics. He is a member of the Global Model Evaluation and Development group at the UK Met Office. Prior to joining the Met Office he held a position as a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. Lorenzo obtained his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland.

Role: Project Manager

Donald is currently supporting the Coordination, Capacity Development and Knowledge Exchange Unit (CCKE) in the role of project manager. He is conducting research that contributes to the Future Climate For Africa (FCFA) programme, researching the motivations and challenges for the uptake of climate change considerations in large-scale hydropower infrastructure in Africa. He is also completing his MSc. in Sustainable Energy Development at the University of Cape Town. Donald’s work experience includes environmental consulting in Gaborone, Botswana and research consulting in Cape Town, South Africa.

Role: Researcher

Dr. Cathryn Birch is a tenure-tracked Academic Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. Her main expertise is in process study within dynamical meteorology using high-resolution weather and climate models. Recent work has focused on monsoons, tropical convection and land-surface interaction in West Africa, India and Southeast Asia. She works closely with the Met Office to diagnose the causes of biases in their suite of weather and climate models and to use them for the study of mesoscale processes within tropical environments

Role: Early Career Researcher

Kara is a post-doctoral researcher in the Climate Modelling Laboratory at North Carolina State University. She is working within the HyCRISTAL Transport Pilot Project (HyTPP) as part of a group providing an analysis of historical and potential future Lake Victoria levels which will be used as input in the World Bank considerations on a program for the rehabilitation of Lake Victoria’s ports and lake transport. Kara obtained her Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from North Carolina State University.

Role: Researcher

Dr. Alex Ruane is a Research Physical Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an adjunct Associate Research Scientist at the Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research. Alex’s research uses a variety of climate and impacts assessment models to examine the influence of climate variability and change on a variety of sectors including agriculture, water resources, urban areas, infrastructure, energy, and human health, leading to the development of adaptation strategies and decision support tools for stakeholders and policymakers.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Weruwetsa is completing his MSc. in Environmental Technology and Management. His research is titled, “Processes for Climate Change Adaptation Planning in the Water Sector: A Case of Kilombero Sub-catchment in Rufiji River Basin, Tanzania.” The proposed research intends to identify gaps in policymaking processes for climate change adaptation within the water sector. Uncertainty regarding the pace, extent and impacts of climate changes, makes policy decision-making more complex and the need for sector policies to be appropriately informed by scientific knowledge.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Emanuel is completing his MSc in Wildlife Conservation. His research is titled, “Climate Variability and Climate Information Use for Water Conservation Decisions in Kilombero River Catchment (KRC), Tanzania”. The findings will reveal how climate information is currently used by different actors to influence local decisions relevant for water resources conservation in KRC. This will help improve climate services appropriate for water conservation as well as provide inputs relevant for policy review and improve water conservation decisions by individuals, local governments and organizations operating in KRC.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Magdalena is completing her MSc. study, titled, “Climate change impacts on hydrological extremes and urban infrastructure: a case of Ifakara Township in Kilombero District, Tanzania”. The study will generate results that could be used by various institutions in planning development. The study will provide information that could be used to enhance decision makers’ understanding towards improving the designs of infrastructures and coming up with measures to protect the inundation in flood areas setting.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Innocent is conducting research on an “assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Irrigation Water Requirements in Mbarali River Catchment” for his MSc. research. The study tries to understand the impacts of climate change on irrigation water demands. Various scenarios of climate change developed by the climate sciences will be used to reveal the various impacts to inform management options. Thus estimation of the irrigation water demand in the changing environment is essential for long-term water resources development and planning.

Role: Principal Investigator

Declan is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics. Declan’s research cuts across water, climate and society, with a strong focus on adaptation and international development. Originally a geographer, Declan draws on insights from different disciplines to pursue problem-focused research. He has over 20 years of experience working in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia (particularly China). Declan’s research funding has included the EU, UK departments DFID, Defra and DECC, UK NERC and ESRC, US NSF and the World Bank.

Role: Project Manager

Estelle joined the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in April 2014. Assisting in managing the Institute’s relationships with its funders, she is responsible for a portfolio of its research grants over the whole funding cycle, including grant applications and project management. She is in particular responsible for the Future Climate for Africa UMFULA research consortium and is working on the Pathways to Resilience in Semi-Arid Economies project. Estelle holds an MSc. in European Policies from Rennes University and Science Po Rennes, France.

Role: Project Manager

Tanya is an experienced project manager with a background in eco-hydrology. She manages several large multi-sectoral international projects, coordinating numerous and diverse project partners (Europe, Latin America, Africa). Her role includes disseminating project outputs to the wider public, including private sector and policy makers. Previously she held a Knowledge Exchange fellowship with NERC on climate change and water scarcity. Tanya holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and an Msc, in Esturarine and Coastal Science Management from the University of Hull.

Role: Project Manager

Alice is the coordinator for the Future Resilience for African CiTies and Lands (FRACTAL) project. She has been working in the field of climate change for a number of years, particularly through designing and managing donor-funded adaptation projects (including GEF, Adaptation Fund and GCF) in Africa and Asia. As the coordinator for the FRACTAL project, Alice is currently liaising with project partners to coordinate research that will support resilient development pathways in Southern African city regions.

Role: Project Manager

Richard leads the Monthly to Decadal Applications group, developing practical climate prediction products that can be readily used to inform planning and policy. This is done by distilling complex information from climate models and other sources into informative ‘user-friendly’ formats. Richard’s main research interest is working with Climate Centres in Africa to better understand and predict African rainy seasons and near-term (next 10 years) climate change, and working with the WMO to strengthen international collaboration in long-range forecasting. Richard has a Ph.D. in meteorology from Edinburgh University.

Role: Project Manager

Gabriela is HyCRISTAL Project Manager and water@leeds Coordinator. She facilitates the development of multidisciplinary partnerships involving academics and government agencies, NGOs and SME’s to find solutions for water-related issues. She has an MSc. in Rural Development and Natural Resources from ECOSUR (Mexico) and a Ph.D. in Plant Ecophysiology from the University of Sheffield (UK). Her research interests include natural resources management, research network facilitation, climate change, tropical forests, ecoinformatics and data-driven decision making.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Benson Mbani is currently a tutorial fellow at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) having recently completed an MSc. in Geospatial Information Science and Remote Sensing (MSc. GIS and R/S). He also holds a first degree in Geomatic Engineering and Geospatial Information Systems from the same University. His research interests are in the fields of Artificial Intelligence for GIS, Satellite Image Analysis, Geostatistics, GIS Programming, Automation and Open Web Mapping.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Dr. Mercy Mwaniki is a lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Nairobi, Kenya. Her expertise are in GIS, Environmental Remote Sensing applied to disaster (e.g. landslides), survey and mapping and Environmental Impact Assessment. She has an MSc.  in GIS and Remote Sensing from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and a Ph.D. in Physical Geography from the University of Bamberg (Germany). Her research thesis focused on modeling the impacts of predicted environmental change on the frequency and magnitude of rainfall-induced landslides in Central Kenya.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Neha Mittal is a Research Fellow at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK. She is working with Andrew Dougill and John Marsham on HyCRISTAL and UMFULA joint project ‘Climate Information for Resilient Tea Production (CI4Tea)’ focusing on co-producing future climate information for tea sector in Kenya and Malawi.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Alfred Kondowe is a meteorologist currently working at Tanzania Meteorological Agency Numerical Weather Prediction Section. He graduated holding a Ph.D. from Russian State Hydrometeorological University in 2012. His research focused on the improvement of the WRF-ARW model forecast of meteorological variables over Tanzania.

Role: Researcher

Caroline is a Ph.D. student at the University of Reading, working with Dr. Emily Black and Professor Richard Allan. Her Ph.D. work looks at the seasonality of precipitation over Africa, including the representation of the seasonal cycle of precipitation in CMIP5 models, and future projections of seasonality. She will be joining HyCRISTAL in May 2018 as a post-doctoral research scientist.

Role: Researcher

Doreen Mwara is an upcoming scientist in Numerical Weather Prediction who obtained her BSc. in Meteorology at the University of Nairobi in 2014. She currently works as a Meteorologist at the Tanzania Meteorological Agency where she deals with downscaling global models to limited area models for Tanzania, using COSMO and WRF-ARW models. Among her interests in research is working with high resolution global and regional models to improve our understanding of future climate.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Chuki Sangalubembe is a principal meteorologist currently working at Tanzania Meteorological Agency in Numerical Weather Prediction Section. He graduated with an MSc. degree in mathematical modeling in 2012 at the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. His research focused on the implementation of WRF-3DVar Data assimilation in Tanzania for the purpose of improving high-resolution regional WRF model forecast of meteorological variables over Tanzania.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Xia is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the North Carolina State University. She obtained her MSc. degree from the same university, focusing on the precipitation process over Lake Victoria Basin using a coupled limited-area atmosphere-ocean model. Within the HyCRISTAL project, she is investigating the drivers of asymmetrical rainfall pattern over lake Victoria.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Claire is a senior applied climate scientist at the Met Office. Her work focuses on the generation and communication of information on climate variability and change to inform decision making on climate resilience and capacity building in developing countries. Key research interests include the generation of downscaled regional climate models over complex regions, the analysis of regional climate change projections and approaches to user/stakeholder engagement.

Role: Principal Investigator

Catherine leads a team of around 20 scientists, at the Met Office, working on understanding climate processes, feedbacks and uncertainty. Catherine joined the Met Office in 1986 after completing a degree in Mathematics at the University of Leeds. She has worked for her entire career on understanding climate processes and feedbacks, with a notable focus on cloud feedbacks and model development and evaluation. In 1997 she became the Manager of Climate sensitivity and then in 2003 the Head of Understanding Climate Change.

Role: Principal Investigator

Professor Bruce Hewitson is the National Research Chair on Climate Change at the University of Cape Town with a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University (1992). His key expertise is in regional climate change, climate modelling, downscaling and climate change scenarios. His group in Cape Town, one of the planned GCAP Knowledge Partners, is the only resource targeting regional climate change projections for Africa. Through these activities, Professor Hewitson has a strong background in working with stakeholders and other scientists across Africa.

Role: Principal Investigator

The principal lead of AMMA-2050, Chris is interested in how the properties of the land surface: soil moisture and vegetation cover, influence weather and climate. His work has been motivated by the need to understand the climate of semi-arid regions in West Africa. For IMPALA, Chris aims to deliver an Afro-centric development of aspects of the Met Office Unified Model and improve aspects of the land surface model JULES in its simulation of surface energy and water fluxes over typical African landscapes.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Matthew Ascott is a hydrogeologist at the British Geological Survey.  Matthew studies the impacts of environmental change of water resources and macronutrient cycles in groundwater-surface water systems.  His current research focuses on quantifying the impacts of climate change on public groundwater supplies in both Africa and the United Kingdom.  Matthew is a fellow of the Geological Society of London and has an MSc. in Hydrogeology from the University of Birmingham.

Role: Principal Investigator

Dr. John Marsham is a Water@Leeds research fellow within NCAS-Weather. He leads a group studying atmospheric convection, tropical meteorology, and Saharan dust uplift. He focuses on taking process studies through to implications for and improvements in weather and climate models. In 2009 he was awarded the Royal Meteorological Society’s L F Richardson prize, in 2010 the European Meteorological Society’s Young Scientist Award for his “outstanding publications”. John holds an MSc. in Physics and a Ph.D. in Meteorology, University of Edinburgh.

Role: Researcher

Pippin currently serves as Director of Graduate Studies within the Faculty of Environmental and Geographical Sciences. She teaches urban ecology at the postgraduate level, and convenes the MPhil in Environment, Society and Sustainability. Pippins’s research sits in the nexus between landscape ecology and restoration; understanding system function at the landscape level to inform recovery to meet conservation and land use agendas.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. Archer van Garderen is a CSIR chief researcher and climate expert, working on the crucial role weather plays on agriculture and livestock. Emma is currently doing a lot of collaborative research with government and other stakeholders on the possible future effects of climate change on South Africa’s primary industries, such as the water, agriculture and mining sectors.

Role: Researcher

David is a researcher with the Department of Physics, within the School of Physical Sciences, College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Richard is currently Associate Professor within the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Connecticut. Richard’s research include but are not limited to regional climate dynamics, coupled regional climate-hydrologic modelling, regional climate change impacts and vulnerability assessments and climate-human-ecosystem interactions. Richard has Bachelor degree in Meteorology from the University of Nairobi and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from North Carolina State University.

Role: Researcher

Babatunde is a lecturer at the University of Cape Town. His research interest is in development, evaluation, and application of dynamic atmospheric models focusing on a model that has capability for horizontal grid adaptation (called CAM-EULAG). He evaluates atmospheric models and uses them to study atmospheric systems that induce extreme events in Africa. He also applies these models for predicting seasonal climates, projecting future climates under different emission scenarios, and understanding potential impacts of land-cover changes on regional climates.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Andrew is a lecturer in International Rural Development at the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading. His research interests include system-wide drivers of agrarian change and ecosystem resilience; governance, including the role of ‘traditional’ institutions in managing land, livestock and environmental resources. Andrew obtained BSocSc. (Honours) and an MSocS from Rhodes University, South Africa. Andrew has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from University College London.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Dr. Mambo is a Senior Researcher in the Climate Studies, Modelling and Environmental Health Group at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in the Natural Resources and Environment (NRE) Department. Julia has a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of the Witwatersrand, where she was also a lecturer.  Julia’s research interests include climate and global change, risk and vulnerability, disaster risk reduction management, and climate change adaptation, as well land use and land cover change, including land degradation.

Role: Researcher

Julie is a regional program officer for East Africa, based in Kampala, Uganda. Her expertise lies in climate risk management, with an emphasis on early warning/early action mechanisms and natural resources management. She also spends half of her time supporting American Red Cross programs in Africa.

Role: Researcher

Xavier is the Deputy National Director for Planning, Ministry of Economy and Finance, Mozambique.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Francois is an agronomist and an Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) researcher. He holds a Ph.D. in Agronomy and Crop Science from Agro Paris Tech, Paris, France. His personal interests include rock climbing and skiing.

Role: Early Career Researcher

A post-doc researcher at UCT, Rondro was previously at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Her research interest spans climate and ocean dynamics, variability and modelling. Within UMFULA, she will investigate the role of the tropical Indian Ocean on Central and Southern Africa climate variability.

Role: Researcher

Lecturer and Researcher in Water management and sanitation in rural and urban areas.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Adama did his Ph.D. in meteorology and climate science at the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) in Nigeria. Since January 2016 he has been recruited as an assistant lecturer and researcher at the laboratory of atmospheric physics and fluid mechanics of physic department of University Felix Houphouet Boigny (UFHB), Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Adama is working as a researcher on the AMMA-2050 project on behalf of UFHB and research board member of African Excellence Center on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Agriculture. He also does some consultancy in the climate change domain.

Role: Researcher

Lars is a Climate Researcher and Associate professor at the Rossby Centre. Lars’ work involves the analysis of climate data and model output; application of climate scenarios; climate impact analysis; climate variations and extremes and is the IPCC Focal Point for Sweden. Lars holds a PhD in Physical Geography and Climatology from Lund University.

Role: Co- Principal Investigator

Victoria leads the Hydrological Modelling and Risk (HMR) Group at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Wallingford. Her current research interests include the development of a grid-based, integrated model to estimate large scale pools and fluxes of nutrients across the UK, national-scale drought modelling, development of hydrological methodology and models for national scale (Great Britain), analysis of flood risk to infrastructure systems and a UK-wide seasonal hydrological forecast system.

Role: Researcher

Mònica is a Research Fellow at SEI Oxford. Her research is on the social aspects of climate adaptation (including synergies with mitigation). Her training includes climate risk communication, vulnerability, and adaptation decision-making and risk governance in a variety of social and environmental contexts.  She has a joint MSc Degree in Environmental sciences, Policy and Management (Hons) from Central European University, the University of the Aegean, the International Institute for Industrial Environmental economics from Lund University and the University of Manchester.

Role: Researcher

Ajay is a research officer at the Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds. His research focuses on climate change adaptation in water resources, stakeholder perceptions and decision-making approaches. Ajay is an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship awardee for the European MSc. programme in Environmental Science, Policy and Management. Ajay pursued his Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. His research interests are climate change adaptation in water resources, decision-making approaches, riverine environmental flow assessment and green urban infrastructure.

Role- Researcher

The focus Lauren’s research is using remote sensing technology to identify potential sites for rain water harvesting upscaling in sub-Saharan Africa.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Emily is a core member of NCAS-Climate staff within the land-surface group. Emily’s work focuses on variability and change in the hydrological cycle, and the way that people perceive and experience the associated hazards. She has strong interests in African rainfall, and leads the Tropical Applications of Meteorology using SATellite (TAMSAT) programme. TAMSAT provides a real-time rainfall product to stakeholders in Africa. Emily received her Ph.D. from Oxford University.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Sukaina Bharwani is co-leader of the SEI theme Reducing Climate Risk and has been a staff representative on the SEI Board. Sukaina has a Ph.D. in Applied Computing (Social Sciences) and a BA. (Hons) in Social Anthropology. Her inter-disciplinary research in Social Anthropology and Computer Science provides her with a unique range of qualitative and quantitative skills linking vulnerability, livelihoods, and adaptation with biophysical analyses. Her current research involves a country pilot study for Future Climate for Africa.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

The main focus of Adeline’s research is to understand how biodiversity of tropical plants is shaped through evolutionary forces resulting from human and environmental impacts. The main activity of her research group at the Research Institute for Development (IRD) focuses on population genetics but also integrates a multidisciplinary approach including ecology, botany, molecular phylogenetics and anthropology working in Senegal, Cameroon, Niger, and Peru.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Ben is a climate scientist at the UK’s Met Office. A big part of his work involves trying to quantify the plausible spread of future changes that are consistent with the current knowledge of climate processes.

Role: Researcher

Ben is a climate scientist at the UK’s Met Office. A big part of his work involves trying to quantify the plausible spread of future changes that are consistent with the current knowledge of climate processes.

Role: Researcher

Ruth is Centre Director of SEI Oxford. Her background is in agriculture, water and climate change impacts and adaptation. She is currently contributing to and developing the SEI Oxford’s weADAPT platform. Her specific contribution is the development of climate change vulnerability assessments for countries involved in ACCCA projects using GIS, models and multiple data sources. Ruth has worked on two of the largest EU projects on climate change impacts and European agriculture, CLIVARA and CLAIRE.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Rosalind’s research interests include: African weather, Africa and climate change, climate modelling, knowledge exchange and methods, governance and decision-making expertise, facilitating entrepreneurial ground-based activities to broker dialogue communication between climate scientists, humanitarian and development practitioners and policy makers in Africa. Rosalind holds a Ph.D. in Meteorology, University of Reading and joined Reading’s Department of Meteorology as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in 2005.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Amy’s Ph.D. focuses on the simulation of rainfall and circulation variables over the Congo basin in climate models, in particular, the CMIP5 suite. Her research uses process-based assessments to identify the causes of differences between model rainfall climatologies, and aims to determine the most credible climate simulations in this data-scarce region. Amy holds a BA (Hons) in Geography from the University of Oxford (First Class).

Role: Researcher

Andy is Professor of Climate Impacts at the University of Leeds. He began his career with a Ph.D. at the University of Leeds on boundary layer flow through forests, moving to postdoctoral research on the impacts of climate variability and change on food crops at Reading. Andy led the NERC consortium End-to-end quantification of uncertainty for impacts prediction (EQUIP) and leads work on Climate Smart Agriculture for Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). He was Lead Author on the ‘Food Production Systems and Food Security’ chapter of the Fifth Assessment report of the IPCC.

Role: ICLEI Africa

Faith has more than seven year’s hands-on experience in the field of environmental management and sustainable development. She is able to engage with various stakeholders- ranging from the private sector, local, sub-national and national public sectors and community members on issues around sustainable development and in particular looking at ways of adaptation and building resilience to the current and projected impacts of climate change. Faith hold a BSc (Hons) in  Forestry Resources and Wildlife Management from the National University of Science and Technology.

Role: Researcher

Dai is a specialist in big data, database and data modelling. He has 30-plus years experience in the computer industry, in public and private sector companies, consulting, teaching and developing software products, and as part of management teams shaping the direction of innovative data start-ups. Dai is a published author of texts on software project management, an international speaker at technology conferences and a guest lecturer at British universities. He has a BSc. in Mathematics from the University of Birmingham and an MSc. in Computer Science from the University of London.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Andrew is Programme Coordinator at Practical Action. He has over 20 years experience establishing and managing international development interventions. Andrew provides technical and advisory support on strategic planning, systems approaches and organisational effectiveness to regional offices and national thematic programmes, with a focus on climate-smart agriculture and resilience to floods and drought. Andrew is currently studying towards his MSc. in Leadership and Innovation at the University of Dundee.

Role: Co-Investigator

Erin provides technical support for the interpretation and use of climate information by disaster managers worldwide. She is the Climate Centre’s liaison at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, delivering decision-making support in response to climate-related questions from humanitarians. Erin also designs participatory games for capacity building and climate change awareness and manages several projects, including forecast-based financing in Uganda and Togo. She is working on a PhD in climate science and disasters at the VU University in Amsterdam.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Matthew’s research interests lie within the areas of climate modelling, climate variability and change, quantifying uncertainty in climate projections, dynamics of the El Nino Southern Oscillation and the dynamics of the Indian monsoon as well as with the quantification of uncertainty in climate projections using ensembles of climate models. He led a group in the Met Office that produced ensembles and implemented an algorithm for producing probabilistic projections of climate change.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

James currently works for Aurecon in Cape Town, South Africa. He is an Associate of the water group working on a range of water resource management projects in Africa. He was also a Rhodes Scholar with degrees in politics, philosophy and economics, and an MSc. in environmental change and management from Oxford University, UK. He was a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA, where he was awarded the Chancellor’s Fellowship.

Role: Researcher

Claire Davis is a climate change impacts and adaptation specialist with a particular research interest in the field of biodiversity and conservation. She currently holds the position of Researcher in the Natural Resources and the Environment Unit (NRE) at CSIR and is also currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Stellenbosch. A key area of expertise is her skills in conducting vulnerability and adaptation assessments and producing tailor-made climate change projections for specific sectors.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Simon is an Associate Professor in Physical Geography and a Fellow of Christ Church. Simon’s research focuses on the processes that link climate, hydrology, and geomorphology. These range from the potential impacts of future climate change on river flows, to the study of how continental-scale weather patterns have influenced mountain topography over the past few million years. Prior to this, Simon was an Environmental Modeler at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology where he remains a CEH Fellow.

Role: Researcher

Marie-Estelle is a senior research scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS)-Climate at Reading University. Her research interests include high-resolution global climate modelling, Global energy and hydrological cycles as well as Land surface-atmosphere interactions.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Alessandro’s work relates primarily to regional climate change modelling and the linkage with impact models (e.g. floods, crop yield, forest fires, etc), with a focus on the problem of ‘downscaling’ and ‘bias-correction’. He is also investigating the feedback between land and climate by means of coupled climate-biogeochemistry models in the study of the effect of climate change on ecosystems. Alessandro has worked on the dispersion of passive and chemically reactive species in the convective boundary layer.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Andy is a dryland environmental change researcher at the University of Leeds who has developed research approaches that integrate a range of disciplines including soil science, ecology, development studies and environmental social sciences. His work has developed innovative research methodologies for using scientific approaches together with local participation to ensure locally relevant research outputs in both dryland Africa and the UK uplands.

Role: Researcher

Tahia joined SEI Oxford as a Research Fellow in 2008. Since April 2016 she works with SEI as a Research Associate from Vancouver, Canada. Her research focus is on social‐ecological system dynamics and ecosystem-based adaptation. Tahia holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford. Her dissertation topics assessed wildfire dynamics in southern Amazonia. Tahia holds a two-year MSc. (Hons) in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from the University of Manchester, IIIEE-Lund University and Central European University.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Moussa is a postdoctoral researcher at the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, Senegal. Moussa’s research interests are Local air-sea interaction, Ocean impacts with continental climate & Climate models bias. Moussa holds a Ph.D. in the Earth and Environmental Sciences from the Pierre and  Marie Curie University, as well as a Masters degree in Meteorology, Oceanography and Arid Environments from the Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique of Dakar in Senegal.

Role: Researcher

Helen is the Head of Environmental Policy & Strategy at the City of Cape Town, where she implements various programmes and projects related to environmental policy & strategy, the Green economy, Environmental fiscal reform, Green procurement and Climate change adaptation at the municipal level. Helen was previously a director of Environmental Sustainability, Climate Change and Biodiversity in the Western Cape Government. Helen holds an M.B.A from the University of Cape Town.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Suraje Dessai is Professor of Climate Change Adaptation at the Sustainability Research Institute in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. His current research and teaching focuses on the management of climate change uncertainties, the perception of climate risks and the science-policy interface in climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Suraje has published 45 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Science and Global Environmental Change, 9 book chapters and edited 2 journal special issues.

Role: Researcher

Joseph is a senior scientist in the Climate Information for International Development team at the Met Office and he uses climate information to guide adaptation and development decisions. . He is currently leading the scientific components of a project funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). His research is on the analysis and communication of climate model output to inform risk management across regions and sectors, with a primary focus on developing countries in Africa and Asia. Joseph obtained a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Arona is a research director at the Institute of Research for Development (IRD), University of Grenoble, France. Arona is currently working on hydroclimatic variability and on the environmental factors associated with extreme events over Africa (floods, drought, wet and dry spells, heat waves). His academic background is in atmospheric physics, climatology, and mathematics. He has a PhD in Meteorology from University of Paris XII, France

Role: Researcher

Adia is currently the Director of Meteorology at the National Agency of Civil Aviation and Meteorology in Dakar, Senegal

Role: Researcher

Mr. Desbiolles is a researcher at the University of Cape Town working on physical oceanography, atmospheric modelling and the Eastern Boundary Upwelling System.

Role: Researcher

Giovanna is a development economist lecturing in the School of Development and Strategic Studies in Maseno University, Kenya. She has research expertise in the fields of micro-entrepreneurship and work-related decisions, adoption of climate change mitigation (agroforestry) and adaptation strategies, individual decision-making processes and the role of formal and informal institutions (primarily gender norms), and psychological traits (primarily risk attitudes). She has an MSc. in International Development and a Ph.D. in Development Economics from the University of Reading.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Barbara holds the chair in Public Health Engineering in the School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds. Barbara is also a Chartered Engineer (CEng). Her research activities centre around sanitation, hygiene and water services in the global south.  Professor Evans’ research includes sanitation in low-income urban communities, rural sanitation, and water/sanitation in cities and towns. Barbara has a BEng. (Hons) in Civil Engineering, Leeds University and an MSc. in Development Studies, London School of Economics.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. Jackson Efitre holds a Ph.D. in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, and Certificates in Water and Natural Resources Management and Geographic Information Systems. He is interested in examining the effect of human activities such as deforestation, over-exploitation, pollution, habitat degradation and climate change on fisheries resources in natural water bodies and in the development of sustainable management strategies for these resources.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Francois leads the climate studies, modelling and environmental health research group at the CSIR. He obtained a Ph.D. in meteorology (University of Pretoria) and specialises in numerical climate model development and regional climate modelling. Francois leads the development of the first African-based Earth system model with national and international partners. He is an associate professor at North-West University and an honorary research associate of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Jonathan is a specialist in instrument development, installation and application of water quality and micro-meteorological systems. He worked to develop the Mk4 Hydra, a low-power, integrated open-path carbon dioxide and water vapour eddy-correlation system. He was involved in the field support and training for the Carbonsink project, measuring the carbon cycle in the Brazilian rainforest, measuring carbon dioxide,  latent and sensible heat fluxes using the eddy correlation technique and micrometeorological and hydrological measurements. He has a Ph.D. from Reading University.

Role: Climate Lead

Piers is the Professor of Physical Climate Change; Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award holder; Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate. His research interests are in the fields of Climate change, Radiative forcing, climate modelling, climate change impact, climate change adaptation, aviation and climate. He holds a BSc in Physics from Imperial College London and a PhD in Meteorology from the University of Reading.

Role: Researcher

Gino is a research fellow in Geography at Susssex University. Gino has over 25 years experience in social and economic development. Over the past 12 years he has worked as a management consultant within the public sector and housing associations specialising in social value, employment, partnership building and community engagement and governance. Gino holds a BA Honours in Environmental Studies from Sheffield Hallam University.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Rory is a postgraduate student at the University of Leeds. His research interest is focused on predicting the West African Monsoon. Rory holds an Msc in Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics from the University of Leeds and his field of expertise is in climatology, climate variability, climate dynamics, climate modelling and meteorology.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Declan is a post-doctoral researcher within the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (ICAS) at the University of Leeds. Within the HyCRISTAL project, he is investigating moist convective processes in East Africa using a convection-permitting model. This work should improve our understanding of uncertainties in climate projections for the region. Declan undertook his Ph.D. with the University of Edinburgh investigating the global representation of lightning in models, the impact of lightning on atmospheric chemistry, and the potential changes in lightning as a consequence of climate change.

Masilin is a Post-Doctoral research fellow at North Carolina State University. She graduated with a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University in 2016, her work involved investigating the impact of rapid urbanization on the climate of East Africa. Her current research in HyCRISTAL project is mainly focused on the lake-atmosphere coupling and to a lesser extent on the impact of urbanization on the regional Climate. This work is carried out using two Regional Climate models that is the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and the ICTP Regional Climate model.

Role: Researcher

Francoise is with the Mesoscale, Meteorologie Group at the National Centre for Meteorological Research.

Role: Researcher

Gerussu is a water resource analyst based at the University of Manchester, working on how to apply state of the art methods for tackling complex management and planning issues on the Nile. His on-going work includes multi-reservoir system design screening, multi-reservoir system scheduling, negotiation approach and adaptive operating rule for reservoir systems. He develops a water resources simulation computer program coupled with evolutionary algorithms for coordinated management of multipurpose – multi-reservoir systems.

Role: Researcher

Kenneth is a Senior Lecturer at Malawi Polytechnic which he joined in 2003. Kenneth also worked for Lever Brothers Malawi (1987-1993) in various technical positions, the last of which was factory manager. He holds a BSc. in mechanical engineering with distinction from Malawi Polytechnic (1987) and MSc. of manufacturing engineering from Oklahoma State University, USA (1996). He has also attended various short courses in management and environment. He has recently joined the membership of the Air Pollution Information Network for Africa.

Role: Researcher

Prof. Amadou Gaye is a scientist and Director of the Physics Laboratory of the Atmosphere and the Ocean at UCAD and is specialised in rainfall variability related to the African monsoon. He is very much active on analysis of climate simulations for climate change and variability issues.  He is involved in the coordination of African scientists working on Climate.  He has been Project Investigator for several research projects.

Role: Researcher

Matthew is a Research Fellow within Exeter Climate Systems. His work for IMPALA involves evaluating large-scale controls on African climate with a specific focus on the global sources of regional bias in climate models, such as the global energy budget and regional/global SST biases. His Ph.D. focussed on the mid-latitude storm tracks and he continues to take an interest in this area. Prior to his PhD, he worked as a research assistant at the University of Oxford, researching climate change and food security in Africa.

Role: Researcher

Feyera is a postdoctoral researcher at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC). His primary duty is to test and improve the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) which is used for operational streamflow forecasting for major rivers around the world. He also coordinates the Global Flood Service and Toolbox pillar of the Global Flood Partnership. Feyera holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Connecticut. His other research interests include nonlinear dynamics, time series analysis, retrieval algorithms, data mining and machine learning.

Role: Project Lead

Jim has interests that include in-situ and remote sensing measurements of atmospheric aerosols and modelling their impacts upon weather, air-quality, visibility and climate. He has led many aircraft-based measurement campaigns investigating the impacts of Saharan dust over West Africa, biomass-burning smoke over West and South Africa, and volcanic aerosols from the Eyjafjallajokull eruption. Modelling work includes assessment of the climate impact of various different anthropogenic and natural aerosols, and the impacts of hypothetical schemes to counter global warming.

Role: Researcher

Helen leads research in water resource assessment and management within CEH, with a strong background in African research. She leads team at CEH working on developing, testing and applying the GWAVA water resource model. Her interests lie in building research capacity, and in building technical capacity in national hydrological agencies to manage water resources effectively and sustainably.

Role: Researcher

Andy analyses the risks of climate change, in order to help people, businesses, governments, and NGOs adapt to climate change. Andy’s work aims to develop tools and methodologies for the assessment of the risks of climate change, with a focus on the multi-disciplinary nature of risk analysis. He has used his analytical skills in a variety of projects such as the risks of climate change on key species and ecosystems and the visualisation of global sea-level rise hazards.

Role: Researcher

Linda is a Research Scientist in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS)-Climate based in the Walker Institute within the Department of Meteorology. Linda’s research interests lie in the drivers of climate variability and change in Africa, the role of air-sea interactions in sub-seasonal climate variability, tropical convection systems, monsoon systems and climate services for Society. Linda holds a Masters degree in Mathematics from the University of East Anglia and a Ph.D. in Meteorology which focused on Tropical Dynamics from the University of Reading.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Emma is a Ph.D. student at the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford. She studies the regional scale atmospheric circulation of tropical south-west Africa, with a view to elicit a better understanding of summer rainfall across southern Africa. This research focuses on vorticity budgets and atmospheric models of the Angola Low. Emma is supported by the Origin Foundation John Monash Scholarship and completed undergraduate studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Julien is the chair in water engineering in MACE, University of Manchester. He has a Ph.D. from the University of California in water resources management and economics and an MEng from Cornell University in Environmental Systems Engineering. His research interests relate to water resources planning and management, focusing mainly on managing water scarcity and planning infrastructure investments using hydro-economic and multi-criteria approaches.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Neil Hart focuses on understanding weather and climate variability and predictability, with a curiosity for interactions between processes across spatio-temporal scales. He is a researcher in African climate science at the School of Geography, Oxford. His Ph.D. research, completed at the University of Cape Town in 2012, investigated the role of tropical-extratropical cloud bands in southern African summer rainfall variability.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Victor joined CSAG in February 2016 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working within FCFA’s FRACTAL project after graduating from Curtin University. Victor is mainly involved in developing user-relevant climate metrics appropriate to the unique contexts of eight cities in southern Africa. Prior to joining CSAG, Victor worked for CRC CARE – Advanced Doppler LIDAR project in Perth and IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) in Nairobi.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Kornelia Ndapewa Iipinge is the Windhoek Embedded Researcher for the Future Resilience for African Cities and Lands Project in Namibia. She has a BSc. Honours in Integrated Environmental Science from the University of Namibia and MSc. in Integrated Water Resources Management from the University of Zimbabwe as one of the Southern African Development Community 2015/16 WaterNet fellows. Her experience is in natural resource management, ecological restoration research and project management.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Chris has wide-ranging interests that cover the spectrum from high-performance computing and big data methods, through to societal engagement and decision-making theory and practice. In particular, he is involved in the following areas within Climate Systems Analysis Group (CSAG) of the University of Cape Town and with partners: computer modeling, downscaling (statistical and dynamical), climate systems analysis, informing decision-making theory, tools, and practice.

Role: Researcher

Richard is a Science Fellow at the Met Office and manages work on generating and applying regional climate information and modelling systems with a focus on international development. Richard has a Ph.D. in Mathematics in the analysis of numerical methods relevant to oil reservoir modelling. Prior to joining the Hadley Centre, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Mathematics Department at Oxford University. He is a Visiting Professor in the School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford, coordinating Met Office Academic Partnership activities and collaborative research.

Role: Researcher

Lawrence is a Research Fellow with the Leeds University’s School of Earth and Environment. Lawrence worked as an actuary in the life & pensions industry from 1987 to 2006. In 2006 he returned to university to study environmental science at the University of York before moving to the University of Leeds in 2007. Lawrence has a BSc. in Mathematics from the University of Southampton, an MSc. Environmental Science and Management from the University of York, and a Ph.D. in Understanding Diurnal Temperature Range Changes from the University of Leeds.

Role: Researcher

Tamara holds an MSc. in Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, Canada, She has worked at the Met Office as a monsoon scientist. She worked on projects to help India and Bangladesh develop their capacity to adapt to regional climate change. As project lead for the Weather and Climate Science for Service Partnership (WCSSP) project in South Africa, Tamara helps bridge the gap between the science of short-range weather forecasting and the all-important business development functions at the Met Office.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Graham holds the Umgeni Water Chair of Water Resources Management and is the Director of the Centre for Water Resources Research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He leads several water and earth system science related initiatives with the relationship between land and water a key research thrust.

Role: Researcher

Eddie joined the Climate Centre in 2015 and provides support to the Partners for Resilience and forecast-based financing programs in East Africa. His focus lies at the intersection of capacity building and urban resilience. Eddie also organizes workshops and training for Climate Centre partners in the region. Before joining the Climate Centre, Eddie was involved in environmental education and urban disaster-risk management, and he is pursuing an MSc. degree in Climate and Cociety at Columbia University in New York.

Role: Researcher

Rachel is a climate scientist, interested in change in African climate systems, and how climate science can provide more useful information for decision-makers. As part of IMPALA she is focusing on evaluating models over southern Africa. In UMFULA, she is investigating processes of change in future climate projections. She is a Research Fellow in Climate Modelling for Climate Services at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. In 2017 she will be based at University of Cape Town.

Role: Researcher

Serge is currently the research director at the Institut de Recherche Pour La Developpement (IRD). He holds a Ph.D. degree and his thesis focused on Climate Variability in Africa from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI). His research interests are in climatology, meteorology, atmospheric sciences, atmospheric physics, hydrometeorology, climate change and African climate.

Role: Researcher

Dr Ndjido Kane is a geneticist and plant molecular biologist with strong expertise in crop evolution, adaptation and mitigations to environmental stress. He is working to preserve and exploit the genetic diversity of cereals in previsions of a climate change and for growing population’s needs. Ndjido holds a Phd in Biology from the University of Quebec as well as Post-doctorate degree from the Center for Research and Technology.

Role: Researcher

Harrouna is a Lecturer in Hydrology and Hydraulics Applied at the International Engineering Institute of Water and Environment (2iE). He holds a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) in Hydrology, Hydrogeology and Geostatistics, and Water geochemistry from the National School of Mines in Paris (France) and a PhD in Geosciences and Natural Resources from Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris, France.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Elizabeth is a climate scientist working at the Met Office on extreme rainfall processes and their evaluation in models across space and time scales. Her work links up Met Office expertise in forecasting extreme events on weather and climate change timescales and exploits the seamless nature of the Unified Model.  Elizabeth studied Natural Sciences (Physics) at Cambridge University and has an MSc. in Pollution and Environmental Control from Manchester University and a Ph.D. from Imperial College London.

Role: Researcher

Cornelia has a background in atmospheric modelling with the Weather Research & Forecasting model (WRF). Currently she is focused on remote sensing data to analyse characteristics of high impact weather in West Africa. Cornelia is interested in how and at which scales surface characteristics may impact the West African monsoon system and the occurrence or maintenance of convective systems. Cornelia holds a Diploma degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Environmental Engineering from TU Berlin, Germany and a Phd from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Ann is a Senior Research Fellow at the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), a knowledge think tank based in Nairobi Kenya. She is also a visiting researcher at the Development Policy and Practice (DPP) unit, Open University, UK. Dr. Kingiri holds a Ph.D. in Development Policy and Practice from Open University, UK, an MSc. in Biosafety in Plant Biotechnology form Mache Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy; an MSc. in Plant Pathology and a BSc. in Agriculture, both from the University of Nairobi.

Role: Researcher

Jess Kavonic completed her MSc. Degree in Climate Change and Sustainable Development at the University of Cape Town in 2013. Jess joined the ICLEI’s Cities Biodiversity center to work on the Urban Natural Assets for Africa Project (UNA Africa). UNA Africa – focusing on Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi and Cape Town – aims to improve human well-being and resilience of the urban poor, through the conservation of local biodiversity and through capacity building of local government and other important stakeholders.

Role: Researcher

Friedrich is a manager for the environmental management  in the City of Windhoek. He has key experiences in waste management, environmental compliance and environment auditing. Fred has a Masters degree in water and environment engineering from the University of Surrey.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Kouadio completed his Ph.D. in Meteorology and Climate Science from the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Nigeria. He is currently at Formation Doctorale Climat, Ressources Naturelles et Innovations (FD CRNI) and the supercomputer centre, from the Université Félix Houphouët Boigny in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. He is a research board member of African Excellence Center on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Agriculture (CEA-CCBAD). Furthermore, he is involved in the AMMA-2050 project on behalf of UFHB through work package 2.

Role: Researcher

Seshagiri Rao Kolusu is a researcher at the University of Sussex. Kolusu’s work focuses on quantifying the impacts of Biomass Burning aerosols on weather and climate. He is aiming to quantify the impacts using the SAMBBA flight observations data and the Met Office UM model simulations over Amazonia, South America.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Japhet is an Engineer with more than 18 years of professional experience in teaching, research and consultancies in water resources, agricultural water management, wetland ecosystems management, eco-hydrological analysis, climate change and adaptations, environmental impact assessment, programme and project evaluation and monitoring of natural resources using GIS and Remote Sensing. He is now working for the Sokoine University of Agriculture in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Tourism.

Role: Researcher

Bettina holds a Master’s Degree in Geography, Cartography and Anthropology from the Free University of Berlin. She’s been working in the development field since 1997, focusing on trans-disciplinary research and participatory methods. She is involved in climate change adaptation working with rural communities, training, social research, and organisational development. Bettina is also undertaking her PhD studies in the field of climate change adaptation – focusing on how to include communities in the adaptation process to increase communal resilience to climate change.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Dr. Nana Ama Browne Klutse is a Senior Research Scientist at the Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute and Manager of the Remote Sensing and Climate Centre at the Institute. She has a Physics background and holds a Doctor of Philosophy Degree from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her area of specialization is climatology and her present research focuses on topics in earth observations, climate modelling and climate impact assessments on society. She has worked on both national and international projects and consultancies including the Climate and Health project in Ghana.

Role: Researcher

Dominic is Professor of Climate Change and Society at the University of Sussex.  His research concerns both the impact of climate change on society and how to improve the use of climate information.  In particular his recent research has explored the nexus of environmental change and migration and the development of methodologies including combining agent based modelling with Q methodology  to explore the intersection of the natural and social sciences.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Jesse is a graduate of BSc. in Meteorology and an early career researcher in the Department of Geography, Geo-informatics and Climatic Sciences, Makerere University. He has undertaken research on evaluation of the performance of CORDEX models over Uganda. He is interested in expanding this work to a larger eastern Africa domain using CMIP5 simulations. This will contribute to Pillar 1 WP 2.3 assessment of the HyCRISTAL project.

Role: Researcher

Erik is a Climate scientist, Associate professor and Head of Rossby Centre. Erik’s work involves the evaluation of climate models; analysis of climate scenarios; probabilistic climate scenarios; paleo-climatological studies and he teaches applied meteorology. Erik holds a PhD in chemical meteorology from the Stockholm University.

Role: Researcher

Melissa has recently completed her Ph.D. at Sussex University where her research explored future climate projections over Southern Africa based on the understanding of contemporary model performance through model evaluation of CMIP5 models. Key signals over the region were identified and understanding the sources of, and physical mechanisms for, uncertainty in future projections were investigated.  Melissa holds a BSc. in Meteorology as well as Honours in Meteorology (both first class degrees) from the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Role: Researcher

Chris holds an undergraduate degree in Zoology and post-graduate degrees in Ocean and Atmospheric Science (BSc. Hons), Zoology (MSc.) and Climatology (Ph.D.). Chris’ Ph.D. tested the ability of a regional climate model (MM5) to capture extreme rainfall events over Cape Town, South Africa. He has also lectured on a number of climate-related courses at UCT. His current Cordex responsibilities include the engagement of users of climate information which he finds particularly satisfying.

Role: Researcher

Ben is a researcher at the The National Center for Atmospheric Research, part of the The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research which provides research, observing and computing facilities, and a variety of services for the atmospheric and related Earth sciences community. Ben has been working with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, the Community Land Model (CLM) as well as using datasets (both remotely sensed and in situ) for various analyses particularly over West Africa.

Role: Researcher

Goabamang is a Candidate Landscape Architect from Botswana. She is an Environmental Planner and Designer. Goabamang is currently a lecuturer in Landscape Design and Urban and Rural Design at the University of Botswana. She holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences, (Environmental and Geographical Science and Industrial Sociology) as well as a Masters in Landscape Architecture from the University of Cape Town. 

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Daniel is a hydrogeochemist at the British Geological Survey. His research spans biogeochemical processes in floodplains, field sensors and isotope techniques for tracking pollution, microbiological contamination in drinking water sources, urban groundwater quality and use, water resources in Africa and Asia, water quality, vulnerability and impact of climate variability. Daniel is a Member of RSC Water Science Forum and the International Association of Hydrogeologists. He is also a Chartered Chemist, RSC.

Role: Researcher

Emmanuel holds a BSc. in Environmental Science from the University of Malawi and a Postgraduate Diploma in Gender Studies from the University of Iceland. Emmanuel is currently pursuing an MSc. in Climate Change and Development at the University of Cape Town and a recipient of the FCFA innovation grants. His thesis is focused on the attribution question of increasing flood frequency and intensity to either or both climate change (changes in rainfall) and/or land use and cover change in the Shire River Basin in Malawi.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Kamazima is an Associate Professor in Marine Physics at Stonybrook University. He studies ocean processes that affect transport (e.g. currents and tides) and density distribution (e.g. mixing and heat balance). His research interests are the structure and dynamics of the shelf-seas, remote sensing oceanography and biological-physical interactions, which affect larval transport. He is also faculty director of the Environmental Living Learning Centre. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales.

Role: Researcher

Diana Mataya is a climate change researcher and disaster risk management professional. She has worked for various organisations including the Institute for Policy Research and Social Empowerment and Regional Hunger Vulnerability Programme. Currently, she is an Independent Research Assistant with Kulima Integrated Development Solutions on the ‘’UMFULA’’ project and is studying for an MSc. in Environment and Development. She is working on research titled: ‘understanding the role of training for development and implementation of climate change adaptation programmes and policies in Malawi’.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Rudo Mamombe is a passionate environmentalist, ecologist and FRACTAL Embedded Researcher at the City of Harare. She graduated from Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe with a BSc. (Hons) in Wildlife and Safari Management. She is currently undertaking her MPhil. studies and is also a research assistant in the department of Freshwater and Fishery Sciences (CUT). Her main research interests are on climate change and variability focusing on governance of natural resources. She is working on a research project on water and energy systems, urban governance and decision making in Harare.

Role: Researcher

Ross is a post-doctoral research scientist at the University of Reading. His main research interests include satellite rainfall estimation and improving the characterisation and understanding of African climate variability and change. He is a member of the TAMSAT Group who provide pan-African satellite rainfall estimates to various stakeholders. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Reading.

Role: Researcher

Skye has worked in the municipal environmental space, focused on education, training and facilitation; gaining experience in policy and planning, communications, and environmental and project management. She is passionate about sustainable living and conservation. Skye strives to affect positive change and support others in their journeys toward sustainable living. She aspires to plan and coordinate projects and facilitate processes that achieve conservation and sustainability goals, through communication, training and education.

Role: Researcher

Sylvester is the Director of Leisure, Culture and Environmental Services at Blantyre City Council in Malawi.

Role: Researcher

Mikhyle currently at both the City of Cape Town, within their Environmental Policy and Planning Unit, and at Greenpeace as an environmental activist. Mikhyle holds an Honours degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of the Western Cape. Mikhyle cares about Civil Rights and Social Action, Disaster and Humanitarian Relief, Economic Empowerment and the role that Science and Technology can play in alleviating poverty and environmental degradation.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

David is Associate Professor of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Bunda,  with a Ph.D. and MSc. in Environment and Development from Universities of Leeds and East Anglia (UK) respectively and a Diploma and BSc. in Agriculture from the University of Malawi. He is involved in several programmes working with both rural and urban communities on climate change impacts and vulnerability among smallholder farmers and on urban and rural poverty.

Role: Researcher

John is a research scientist working on the project. He is a Senior Lecturer in Terrestrial Ecology and the coordinator of the Master Biodiversity Management and Research at the Department of Biological Sciences of the University of Namibia, Windhoek. He is also the current Vice Chairperson of the “NEWS”, the Namibia Environment & Wildlife Society. In close collaboration with Dr. Mfune, we aim to train Namibian nationals through the University of Namibia on topics relevant to evolutionary ecology, stable isotopes and wildlife management.

Role: Early Career Researcher 

Felix is a lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Nairobi, Kenya. His expertise in GIS and Remote Sensing, Database development, Climate Modelling, Climate Change, Survey and mapping and Environmental Impact Assessment. He has an MSc.  in Environmental Information Systems from Jomo Kenyatta University and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Tokyo, his research focused on Integrated Climate Change Impact Assessment and Extreme Event Forecasting in the Lake Victoria Basin.

Role: Researcher

Rebecka Malinga is a post-doc researcher at the Centre for Water Resources Research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to carry out research within UMFULA. She received her Ph.D. in Sustainability Science at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden. Rebecka is interested in transdisciplinary research with an emphasis on participatory approaches with local stakeholders and gender issues. Within UMFULA Rebecka will focus on the Malawi study and assess socio-economic factors behind decision making for smallholder farming communities and members of outgrower schemes.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Genito is an associate Professor at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique. He lectures in Modeling and Simulation of Physical Processes: Air Pollution dispersion modelling and aspects cover air pollution dispersion modelling, including radioactive tracers, from release to deposition. Genito also assists graduate and undergraduate students research. Genito holds a masters degree in Physics as well as doctorate in Environmental & Geographical Science from the University of Cape Town.

Role: Researcher

James previous area of work involved applied hydrology in the consultancy sector, utilizing hydrological and hydraulic models to determine the impacts of developments on flood risk and assessing water supply scenarios. He has also been a volunteer working in Indonesia on a community flood management project, developing the knowledge and commitment of local residents in managing their local environment and building rainfall harvesting systems.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

David is a hydrogeologist at the British Geological Survey. David’s research interests include groundwater flooding, groundwater policy and management, groundwater resource assessment and raising awareness of groundwater issues. David holds a BSc. in Geophysics from the University of Edinburgh as well as an MSc. in Water Resource Systems Engineering from the University of Newcastle.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Callum is a Ph.D. student based in the School of Geography, Oxford. His work focusses on understanding why climate models have different representations of rainfall in southern Africa. In the context of UMFULA, Callum is particularly interested in how model simulation of important regional circulation features may be linked to model rainfall across the subcontinent.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Brenda works at the University of Zambia, and Lusaka City Council. Her research interests include urban informality and a participatory approach to sustainable solutions in areas of housing, water and infrastructure development and maintenance. Additionally, Brenda is interested in climate change adaptation for cities aimed at building resilience, environment and society as well as inclusive and participatory approaches to decision making for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Brenda has undertaken research and training/capacity building around areas of decentralisation, formulation of development policies and implementation plans for urban informal areas.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Sean leads the Global Model Evaluation and Diagnostics section at the Met Office, developing the Global Atmosphere configurations of the Unified Model across all timescales. Sean focuses on i) diagnosing global model systematic errors and performance against observations ii) coordinating the trialling and pull through of improvements in model physics, dynamics, and resolution iii) developing new diagnostic techniques to understand the source of model systematic error growth iv) promoting development of the global NWP model.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. Mdemu is currently a lecturer at Ardhi University, Tanzania, and an independent consultant. Dr. Mdemu is specialised in Water Resources Management, Agricultural /Irrigation Water Management, Land management, Rainwater Harvesting and Management, Environmental Impact Assessment, Climate Change, adaptation and mitigation studies.

Role: Researcher

Joseph is a lecturer at the University of Nairobi in the meteorology Department where he obtained his BSc, MSc and a Ph.D. His research interests lie in Weather and climate dynamics and physical modelling for weather and climate prediction deterministic models, global climate models, downscaling by dynamical and MOS schemes, development of multimodel ensemble developments for climate forecasts and change as well as applications to assessments and long-term sustainability of water resources and rain-fed food production in various parts of Kenya and Eastern Africa.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Rhoda is a graduate of BSc. in Meteorology and an early career researcher in the Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Climatic Sciences, Makerere University. She has undertaken research on climate-smart Agriculture in Nakasongola district in Uganda. She sees potential to expand this and is interested in continuing this work by supporting the livelihood team within HyCRISTAL. She will also support Pillar 1 WP 2.3 assessment on the literature review to document findings of related studies.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Dr. Siny Ndoye holds a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar and University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris. His Ph.D. research interests are the investigation of the dynamical functioning of the Senegal upwelling using satellite images, in situ data and state-of-the-art 3D numerical simulations. In Postdoctorate, he works on the project: the SCUC-2050 : Exploring the future of the Southern Canary Upwelling System funded by FCFA: Innovation Fund. His research interests include regional ocean modelling and hydrology and circulation of the southern Canary system.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Grigory Nikulin is a research scientist in the Rossby Centre (SMHI) and his main research activity is the analysis of both global and regional climate models. His research focuses on how the statistics of weather and climate extremes may change in the future under different climate scenarios. His current research focus is on providing climate information for impact studies. He is WP leader in the FP7 project EUPORIAS and a member of WRCP CORDEX Scientific Advisory Team.

Role: Researcher

Simphiwe Ngcobo is currently a Hydrology Lecturer at the Centre for Water Resources at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research interests include understanding the dynamics between anthropogenic global change and hydrological processes and responses. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. focused on detailing the multiscale drivers and impacts of land use change on water resources across Southern Africa. As part of the UMFULA project, Simphiwe will be assessing the impacts of land use change and climate change on sugarcane production across four basins in Southern Africa.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Francis is a Ph.D. student with the Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics section at the Department of Physics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He is now working on the Evolution of Extreme Rainfall Events and its Dynamics over the Southern West Africa. He holds a BSc. and MSc. in Physics (Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics option) from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. His research interests are primarily in regional climate change, climate modelling, climate extremes, West African monsoon and its dynamics, time series analysis and methodologies in investigating atmospheric processes.

Role: Researcher

Wilma is a Lecturer within the Geography Department at the University of Zambia. Wilma possesses research skills in Qualitative Research, teaching statistics and SPSS, as well as in Remote Sensing, ArcGIS. She is knowledgeable about Sustainable Development. Wilma holds an MSc. degree from the London School of Economics and Political Studies and a Ph.D. from the University of Zambia.

Role: Researcher

Mark is Pro-VC for Climate Change and Director of the ACDI. He holds a joint appointment as Professor of International Development at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom His work on climate change scenarios includes the UNDP climate change profiles which provide a consistent set of climate scenarios for over fifty developing countries, and scenarios for islands of the Caribbean as part of the CARIBSAVE project. His research on impacts and adaptation has addressed broader adaptation policy issues around high-end climate change and dangerous climate impacts.

Role: Researcher

Kathryn is a research fellow in the Climate Impacts Group, which is part of the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science at Leeds University. Her work focuses on the use of seasonal and decadal forecasts in the prediction of crop yields. Kathryn holds an MSc. degree in Physics from Oxford University as well as a Ph.D. from the University of Leeds where her thesis focused on seasonal crop yield forecasting in semi-arid West Africa.

Role: Researcher

Ousmane heads the research and application groups at the National Civil Aviation and Meteorology Service (ANACIM) in Senegal. Ousmane studied meteorology engineering and physics, and then went on to get a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Ousmane is an expert on seasonal and monsoon forecasting and aims to foster dialogue between climate and weather experts with the hopes of enabling and encouraging farmers, herders and health workers, among others, to use climate information and related farming tips in their decision making.

Role: Researcher

Mzime is an Ecologist with extensive experience in biodiversity and conservation, natural resources management, environmental change analysis.  Mzime also has working experience in field-based research particularly in environmental issues, working with environmental management, research and policy organizations in and out of Africa and through various networks. She is currently the Deputy Dean in the School and also works as a Research Leader and Lecturer and has previously taught at the University of Zimbabwe for a number of years.

Role: Climate Lead

Richard is a senior scientist at NaFIRRI and an honorary lecturer at Makerere University.  He has over 30 years of research and administrative experience in fisheries and aquatic ecosystem research.  He has initiated, supervised and coordinated at least ten donor projects, published over 50 papers in refereed journals, supervised at least ten graduate students, and undertaken over 25 consultancies. He holds a PhD in Fisheries and Acquatic Ecology, Masters in Fisheries Biology and Acquatic Ecology, BSc. (Hons) in biology.

Role: Researcher

Sean is Acting Manager within the Climate Protection Branch in the Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department in the eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa. Sean directs Ecosystems Based Adaptation strategies, as well as Durban’s Adaptation Charter and CEBA – Community Ecosystems Based Adaptation strategies that fit in with Durban’s overall Climate Change Strategy.

Role: Early Career Researcher

John Owuor is a lecturer at the School of Development and Strategic Studies (SDSS), Maseno University. He has a background in Political Science and Geography at an undergraduate level and MSc. in Development Studies from the University of Nairobi. Currently, John is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Development Studies at Maseno University. His area of research interest is in climate adaptation specifically assessing the influence of adaptive governance in building adaptive capacity of fishing communities in developing countries.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Susan is an urban geographer in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT) African Centre for Cities. Prior to her appointment at UCT she taught in the Wits University Geography Department (Johannesburg) and the School of Oriental African Studies (London). Susan’s early academic research was in the area of urban historical geography and focused on the rise of racial residential segregation and the impact of colonialism on urbanization and town planning in Sub-Saharan Africa

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Doug is a lecturer in the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds University where he leads a strong research group studying climate dynamics of Africa, with a track record of collaborative work in the region. His research focuses on the physics and dynamics of weather systems, and their interaction with regional climate systems. Douglas holds an M.A. degree in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Reading.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Wilfried is a lecturer at the University of Yaounde’s Department of Physics. His research interest is identifying key processes of climate variability in central Africa, mainly in the atmospheric water cycle, and analyse their representations in simulations of GCMs to assess the impact on climate change. His current focus is on water vapour transport and precipitation recycling for Equatorial Central Africa, emphasising seasonal cycle and inter-annual variability of the water vapour flux and precipitation recycling to identify dominant regulating factors of this variability.

Role: Researcher

Geremy is a research scientist at Grenoble Institute of Technology. He has a BSc. degree from Avignon University, and an MSc. and Ph.D. from Grenoble University. His thesis was on Extreme Rainfall Analysis and Evolution in the West African region. His research interests focus on climatology, hydro-meteorology, hydrology, West African monsoon (especially rainfall and hydrological regimes), water cycle intensification, time-series analysis (detection/attribution), and extreme rainfall analyses (characterization, evolution, scale issues).

Role: Researcher

Rameshwarah’s research interests are within river hydraulics, hydraulic and hydrological modelling, flood conveyance, turbulence measurements and modelling, flood and drought impact, fluvial ecosystems and physical habitat modelling, agro-hydrological modelling, irrigation water use efficiency, brackish water irrigation and yield response. Rameshwarah has a BSc. Honours in Civil and Structural Engineering from the University of Bradford, an MPhil from the University of Wales and a Ph.d. from the University of Aberdeen.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Celia is a co-founder of Evidence for Development and has worked extensively at an international policy level on the protection of children in situations of armed conflict, and on social protection and social policy issues affecting children. Celia studied history at Oxford University and has a Ph.D. from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her publications include work on famine and food security, livelihood assessment and analysis, social policy and youth justice in developing countries, and the impact of armed conflict on children.

Role: Researcher

Joanna is a postdoctoral researcher on the Future Climate For Africa UMFULA project. Her doctoral thesis examined vulnerability and adaptation to multiple hazards in West Africa and her work on UMFULA will build on this with a focus on decision making under uncertainty in Central and Southern Africa. Prior to her Ph.D., Joanna obtained an MSc. specialising in water science, policy and management at the University of Oxford and subsequently spent three years as a Researcher at Middlesex University’s Flood Hazard Research Centre.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Izidine enrolled for a Ph.D. at CSAG mid-2011. His research interests revolve around climate modeling, extreme weather events and statistical methods for the analysis of these.

Role: Researcher

Irene is a research scientist in the Department of Meteorology at Reading University. Her research expertise is within the fields of climate variability, climate dynamics, physical oceanography and ocean currents and circulation.

Role: Project Investigator

Jon is the Director of START’s Risk, Vulnerability, and Adaptation program. Prior to joining START, Jon worked at the World Bank and the US Agency for International Development on climate change adaptation initiatives. At the World Bank, he developed a study detailing where Bank investments are needed to build adaptive capacity in the agriculture sector. At USAID he managed adaptation projects and helped to develop a guidance manual on climate change adaptation for that agency’s field operations. Jon received his PhD in soil science from Cornell University.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Kwesi is currently a Ph.D. Fellow with Climate Systems Analysis Group (CSAG) at the University of Cape Town where he is working on the co-behaviour of climate processes relevant to southern Africa.  He holds a BSc. and MSc. in Physics (meteorology option) from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. His research interests are primarily in regional climate change, climate modelling, climate extremes, and methodologies in investigating atmospheric processes.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Chris Reason is involved with research relating to Southern Hemisphere climate variability, southern African rainfall variability, mesoscale and coastal meteorology, tropical meteorology and oceanography, severe weather, ocean-atmosphere interactions, Indian and South Atlantic Oceans, Southern Ocean, ocean and atmospheric modelling.

Role: Researcher

Raul is the Head of Department at the Education in Natural Sciences and Mathematics , at Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique.

Role: Researcher

Mathieu is the South African Research (SARChI) Chair on Land Use Planning and Management at the School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research aims to improve environmental decision making and natural resource management. His research contributes to integrating biodiversity conservation into land use decision making and to generate multiple benefits from our ecosystems.

Role: Researcher

Philippe works with LOCEAN. His research interests are climate change impacts on agriculture in West Africa, crop modelling, seasonal forecasting, and hydrology.

Role: Climate Lead Researcher

Gabriel has been a member of Parametrizations since 2006 and prior to that spent several years working in Observations Based Research at the Met Office Research Unit at Cardington. He obtained his PhD on plume-flow modelling from DAMTP, University of Cambridge, following a maths degree from The Queen’s University of Belfast. Gabriel currently works on aspects of convection in the atmosphere, which includes atmospheric convection, as well as convective-type flow from other sources e.g. volcanic plumes.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Dave’s main areas of expertise are African climate variability and change, and the mechanisms and uncertainty of future regional climate change, using both General Circulation Model (GCM) and observational data. Other research interests have included European climate change, atmospheric decadal variability, and global seasonal predictability. Dave graduated from the University of York, then completed a Ph.D. at the University of Reading in short-range rainfall forecasting over the Sahel.

Role: Researcher

Debra established and heads the Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department of eThekwini Municipality (Durban, South Africa). Debra was a lead author of Chapter 8 (Urban Areas) and a contributing author to Chapter 12 (Africa) of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report. Debra holds a B.Sc. (Environmental Biology, Cell Biology, Organic Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry), B.Sc Hons, (Terrestrial Ecology and Biogeography) and a PhD (Urban Biogeography) from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Role: CI

Phillip Stier is a Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the Department of Physics and a Fellow in Physics at Oriel College, University of Oxford. He heads the Climate Processes Group in Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics of the Department of Physics at Oxford and am currently the academic coordinator of the Oxford Climate Research Network. His research addresses physical climate processes in the context of anthropogenic perturbations to the earth system as the underlying cause of climate change and air pollution.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Benjamin Sultan is a senior researcher specialised in Climate variability; predicting Societal impacts of climate variability and crop modelling. He leads research in climate change and its impacts on agriculture in West Africa.

Role: Project Manager

Rebecca is currently the Project co-ordinator for water@leeds. Rebecca’s main research interests concern understanding the fate and behaviour of chemicals in different environmental media, with a particular focus on freshwater systems, within a risk assessment framework and with a focus on human health consequences. Rebecca has a BA (Hons) Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford, and an MSc in Ecology: Theory & Techniques, University of Wales Bangor and a PhD in Environmental Sciences from Imperial College London.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Frederick is a Professor of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences and of Mathematics at the North Carolina State University. He directs the Climate Modelling Laboratory at NC State; which develops innovative numerical methods for climate models and builds and applies regional coupled models for application to critical user needs in Africa and around the world. Dr. Semazzi has a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and is a Postdoctoral Fellow, National Academy of Sciences, NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Meggan manages the climate change adaptation and biodiversity workstream at ICLEI Africa. Prior to joining ICLEI Africa she worked as a Climate Protection Scientist and Specialist Climate Change Consultant at eThekwini Municipality, where she was involved in the planning of the eThekwini Municipal Climate Protection Programme. Meggan holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from Rhodes University. Her research was on investigating the barriers to and enablers of municipal planned climate change adaptation.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Lindsay’s research is interdisciplinary and uses theories and methods from both the natural and social sciences. Her work engages with research users, and is instrumental in informing international policy interventions through the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Lindsay is a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Regional Assessment for Africa, as well as Lead Author for the IPBES Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment.

Role: Researcher

Dianne Scott is a social scientist with a research interest in the field of environmental and climate change governance, environmental politics, and sustainable urban development, with a particular focus on South Africa and KwaZulu-Natal. She is currently working on a critical analysis of climate change/water governance in South African and sub-Saharan cities. She is also a co-editor of a book on the co-production of development and climate change knowledge for the city of Cape Town.

Role: Researcher

Anna is the lead on climate services in the Climate System Analysis Group. She has a background in applied climate science with a current research focus on the engagement of users and decision-makers in the use of climate information. Her research interests include climate services, user engagement in developing decision-relevant climate information, and science into use. Anna also has more than 5 years of previous experience working at the UK Climate Impacts Programme.

Role: Researcher

Geoffrey is an experienced climate scientist who recently submitted his Ph.D. Geoffrey’s research involves assessing the drivers of current climate variability and future climate change over Uganda and how the climate extremes associated with variability and change impact on banana production in Uganda. Geoffrey has a BSc. (Hons) in Mathematics and Economics from Makerere University, Uganda and a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

Role: Researcher

Patrick is a researcher at the Rossby Centre. His research involves the Model development of mesoscale models; parameterisation of physical processes in numerical models; processes related to soil, vegetation and lakes and presentations and lectures about NWP, climate change and climate modelling. Patrick holds a PhD in meteor0logy from Uppsala University.

Role: Researcher

Gilbert has completed his first semester at UCT with great aplomb, and is currently undertaking an internship with the Zambian affiliate of Shack/Slum Dwellers International, known as People’s Process on Housing and Poverty in Zambia (PPHPZ). His activities have included monitoring housing demolitions associated with the (currently underway) Lusaka Ring Road Project. Gilbert holds an MSc. in City and Regional Planning from the University of Cape Town and he is currently completing his Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning also at UCT.

Role: Climate Lead

Philip is a Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the Department of Physics and a Fellow in Physics at Oriel College, University of Oxford. He heads the Climate Processes Group in Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics of the Department of Physics at Oxford and is currently the academic coordinator of the Oxford Climate Research Network. His research addresses physical climate processes in the context of anthropogenic perturbations to the earth system as the underlying cause of climate change and air pollution.

Role: Unspecified

Samuel is currently the Manager of Applied Meteorology and Climate Analysis at Uganda National Meteorological Authority. Samuel has more than 10 years experience working as an Agro-meteorologist with the Ministry of Water and Environment, as well as expertise in the generation of weather and climate advisories and publishing of Agro meteorological bulletins. Samuel has a Postgraduate Diploma in Meteorology from the University of Nairobi.

Role: Researcher

Youssouph is a researcher with the National Agency of Civil Aviation and Meteorology (ANACIM). His research interest is in the evolution of the monsoon in West Africa. He analyses extreme weather events and their impact on the different hydrological cycles in West Africa.

Role: Researcher

Sarah is Director of Programs for the International START Secretariat and develops project concept notes and program proposals, designs and leads the execution of project activities, manages START budgets and engages in outreach to START partners and donors. She also manages day-to-day activities of START program staff. She holds an MSc. in Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and a BSc. in Environmental Communication from Colorado State University.

Role: Researcher         

Sabine works as a lecturer at UKZN, her area of expertise is adaptive water management and water governance of South Africa. A specific focus is mainstreaming climate change and adaptation into decision-making processes. She is involved in the Governance Think Tank of the Water Research Commission, is a member of the WISA Management and Institutional Affairs Division committee championing the governance theme, and is a member of the Interim Steering Committee for the re-establishment of the South African Country Water Partnership.

Role: Researcher

Christian is a research officer at the Grantham Research Institute. Christian studies people’s adaptation strategies to climate variability and uncertainty, applying economic concepts like flexibility and diversification. Christian holds a Masters degree in hydrology and a Ph.D. in environmental economics from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His doctoral thesis focuses on flexibility in land and water use for coping with rainfall variability. He has worked for various large climate and water-related research projects, focusing on East Africa and South Asia.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator   

Swenja is a Senior Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is Programme Leader for the ‘climate risk, insurance, and private sector’ work-stream at the institute, overseeing research projects from a multi-disciplinary field. Her research focuses on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction with a special interest in the role of the private sector, particularly insurance and public-private partnerships as well as adaptation policy.

Role: Researcher

Daithi’s research interests focus around the detection and attribution of climate change and its effects on human and natural systems.  Essentially this means trying to figure out whether and by how much human activities are causing various aspects of the climate system to change, and trying to figure out whether and by how much those changes in the climate system are affecting human and natural systems. His recent focus has been on the attribution of changes in the chances of extreme weather events, such as extremely hot seasons or wet seasons.

Role: Researcher

Mawanda provides technical advice, policy support and capacity building on National Adaptation Programmes in Armenia, Georgia, Kenya, Malawi and Nepal. He supports humanitarian diplomacy on climate policy, linking with the IFRC secretariat and Partners of Resilience. Mawanda was formerly in charge of disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation at the Uganda Red Cross Society, engaging local structures, national governments and regional bodies on climate risk management and policy dialogue.

Role: Researcher

Pablo is Associate Director for Research and Innovation at the Red Crescent Climate Centre. He now directs our initiatives linking applied knowledge with humanitarian work, as well as new approaches to climate risk management. Examples include participatory games for learning and dialogue, and the forecast-based financing pilots in Togo and Uganda – the use forecasts of extreme events to trigger the disbursement of funds for action before a disaster occurs. Pablo holds a first degree in water engineering, an MSc. in community planning and development, and a Ph.D. in geography.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Rachel is a senior scientist working on convection, she is the convection scheme code owner and works on improving the convective parameterization scheme in the Unified Model. Rachel started at the Met Office in 1985, working for 5 years on ocean wave modelling, she then moved to the Met Office Hadley Centre in 1991 spending the first 2 years building the Unified Model and then focussing on Climate Model Evaluation and Development.  Rachel holds a D.Phil in theoretical nuclear physics from Oxford University.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Martin Todd is a climate scientist in the Geography Department at the University of Sussex. His research interests include the role of mineral dust aerosols in the climate system, climate change impacts on hydrological systems and the variability in the tropical climate system.

Role: Researcher

Richard works on understanding environmental-related decision-making and adaptation processes. He has also been applying agent-based social simulation to address environmental management and development problems, including modelling socio-cognitive factors affecting disaster preparedness, impact of shrimp farming on rice paddy ecosystems and dependent livelihoods, and the emergence of sustainable agro-forestry from farmer decision-making in Cameroon. He has been working at SEI Oxford since 2007 and he is a Visiting Staff member at MMU Business School.

Role: Researcher

Mark is involved in African climate variability, seasonal forecasting and climate change issues. He works with the Climate Systems Analysis Group (CSAG), based in the EGS department. Mark’s research interests include intra-seasonal rainfall characteristics important for agriculture, their physical causes and potential predictability. Ongoing work on the onset of the maize growing season relates to food security concerns across the region. He is involved with assessing GCM climate change predictions for Africa and assessing different.

Role: Researcher

Fowe is a researcher in hydrology and water resources. Fowe’s specific interest lies in the impact of global change on water resources in the Sahel and West African regions.

Role: Researcher

Anna works on questions of urban adaptive governance and sustainable transitions to address the differential risks, vulnerabilities and impacts associated with climate change. Anna has a background in human geography and environmental science. She has an interest in what knowledge, whose knowledge and how different kinds of knowledge is brought to bear on decisions and actions affecting the resilience of an urban system, which leads to questions of power and empowerment. Anna joined the African Centre for Cities in 2011 to work on her PhD as part of the Mistra Urban Futures program.

Role: Researcher

Laure is a researcher with the Senegalese Institute for Agricultural Research (ISRA). Laure’s research interests are in soil fertility, nutrient cycling in soils, legume-based systems and intercropping and greenhouse gas (CH4 and N2O) emissions in agricultural systems. Laure holds a BSc. in Biology, and an Msc. and Ph.D. in Environmental Biology from the University of Montreal.

Role: Researcher

Dorothy is an independent contractor working with Kulima Integrated Development Solutions and with the Centre For Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a Malawian NGO, as a Senior Programme Officer. She has a BSc. in Agriculture Economics from Bunda College, Malawi, and is currently finalizing her MSc. with Makerere University, Uganda. She is involved in policy research and advocacy on the environment, natural resources, climate change and disaster risk management.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Andrew is a former NERC Fellow and now Lecturer in Monsoon Systems funded by the University of Reading’s Academic Investment Programme and NCAS-Climate. His general interests are in monsoon variability, predictability and prediction including the interaction between monsoon systems and other elements of the climate system. Andrew holds a Masters degree in Physics from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Reading.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Dr. Lulu van Rooyen (née Pretorius) holds a BSc. in Environmental Science;  a B.Sc. (Hons) in Plant Science and an MSc. and Ph.D. in Environmental Management. Her post-graduate studies are related to wetland ecology. Lulu has worked as an environmental and ecological consultant, for environmental companies as well as in a freelance capacity. She is currently employed at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to act as an embedded researcher as part of the Durban Research Action Partnership (D’RAP); where she is to develop and implement a long-term biodiversity monitoring program.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Katharine is a director at Kulima Integrated Development Solutions, a consultancy working to address the risks of climate change and secure human development. Her work focuses on linking scientific and academic research with the policy and practice communities. She has a BA (Hons) in Geography from Oxford, an MRes in Environmental Science Research from the University of East Anglia and a Ph.D. (looking at gendered vulnerability to climate change in South Africa) from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Role: Researcher

Yves’ research focuses on studying how evolutionary processes shaped population and genome diversity. His research group at the Research Institute for Development (IRD) focuses primarily on cultivated crops and their wild relatives. With cultivated crops, they also seek to understand how human activities and historical events shaped their diversity. Yves holds a Master in Ecology and Evolution from University Montpellier II, France and a Ph.D. from the University of Burgundy.

Role: Climate Lead

Martine is a Professor in the School of Economics, University of Cape Town and holds a Ph.D. from Gothenburg University in Sweden. Martine is currently a Research Chair with the African Climate & Development Initiative (ACDI). Martine specializes in behavioural economic applications to climate change, natural resource use, and health and poverty alleviation. Martine holds B.Sc. (Hons) in from the University of Cape Town.

Role: Researcher

Coleen recently re-joined the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg after spending time at the University of Pretoria. Coleen was also a ‘visiting’ Professor with the University of Stellenbosch working on climate change adaptation and transdisciplinarity. Her current research interests include working in the social and physical dimensions of climate change resilience including helping to build and enhance robust responses to environmental change, effective climate change responses and efforts in disaster risk reduction.

Role: Researcher

Theo is a lecturer in Hydrology at the University of Grenoble. Theo’s research interests centre around the long-term evolution of the hydro-climatic systems to better address drought and flood hazards. He has further skills and expertise in climatology, hydrometeorological hazards, statistical hydrology, stochastic simulations and hydrological modelling. Theo holds an MSc. degree in Mechanics, Geophysics and Environment from Joseph Fourier University and a Ph.d. in Ocean, Atmosphere and Hydrology from Grenoble Institute of Technology.

Role: Researcher

Michael works on making monthly-to-decadal forecasts over Africa better geared towards users and on the irreversible change in the meridional overturning circulation. His research focuses on multi-year changes of rainfall over the Sahel. His work aims to improve understanding of why many climate models fail to reproduce the magnitude of multi-year rainfall changes that have been observed over the Sahel in the 20th century. Increased understanding of model shortcomings will help to improve the climate models and increase confidence in forecasts of future climate change over the Sahel.

Role: Researcher

Emma is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London in the Geography Department. She has worked with humanitarian and development operational and policy research organisations for over twenty years. She was awarded a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship with NERC to support strengthened dialogue between the providers and users of science for strengthening resilience amongst at risk groups. Emma has a BA. in Swahili and African Art and Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies and an MA. in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Essex.

Role: Climate Lead

Simon joined the Met Office in 2001 as a research scientist. Simon completed a PhD on the behaviour of orographic internal gravity waves at the Department of Applied Mathematical Studies, University of Leeds in 1995. Following this, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow on a number of projects at the University of Surrey and the University of Leeds, latterly funded by the NERC postdoctoral fellowship scheme. His experience includes participation in and coordination of field measurement programmes, fluid dynamical laboratory experiments and numerical modelling.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Robert is a Professor of Hydroclimatic Modelling in the Department of Geography at Loughborough University. His research is on managing freshwater environments under climate variability and change, including reconstruction of drought and flood indices to assess the severity of recent extreme events. Current research explores smarter approaches to climate risk assessment and decision-making under uncertainty. On-going projects include seasonal river flow forecasting for hydropower plants in Central Asia.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Ben is an Instrument Engineer at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK. He constructs, installs and maintains data-logging and telemetry systems using a wide variety of sensors for hydrological and micrometeorological measurements. He is particularly interested in measuring gas fluxes by eddy covariance. His work on the HyCRISTAL project concerns the deployment of a hydro-meteorological network in Kampala, Uganda, and a transect of climate stations in Kenya. He obtained his Ph.D. at Bangor University, assessing the distribution and persistence of viral contamination in shellfisheries.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Grady is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Reading.  His research interests include visual methods of creative inquiry, participatory approaches, critical pedagogy and theory, and subjectivity in the Anthropocene.  He worked for many years as a documentary filmmaker before receiving his MSc. degree in Environmental Conservation Education from New York University, followed by his Ph.D. from the Centre for Communication and Social Change at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Role: Researcher

Niki joined START as a program specialist, managing the Pan-Asia Risk Reduction (PARR) Fellowship Program and contributing to a range of START programs. Niki holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta and a Master of Environmental Management in Environmental Economics and Policy from Duke University. She has also conducted ecosystem services and natural capital research and strategic planning at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Washington, DC and Ausenco in Peru.

Role: Researcher

Piotr is a hydrologist. Maybe even a wetland hydrologist. He likes to get his feet wet and measure water in swamps. But he is to do this no more. He has discovered the joys of juggling climate data. Using climate models’ output for hydrological analyses in the context of climate change impact assessment, attribution and seasonal forecasting. Trying to figure out how the uncertainties and errors propagate through the various processing steps, and how to extract useful information out of this somewhat messy business. He bridges the disparate worlds of climate and hydrological modelers.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Celia Way is a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds.  Working with Barbara Evans within the Institute of Public Health and Environmental Engineering, Celia is focusing on understanding the impacts of climate change on urban water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) systems. As part of HyCRISTAL, she is creating a tool or platform to guide the selection of cost-effective water supply and sanitation interventions that will reduce the total health burden for the area considered.

Role: Researcher

Catherine is a graduate environmental and civil engineer (hydrology) and has most recently consulted for UNESCO.  She gained invaluable practical engineering skills whilst being involved in multiple internships and training programs. Catherine is skilled in technical writing, fieldwork, lab work, and research techniques. Motivated by work that has a positive impact on society and the environment. Catherine is currently a Ph.D. student at Grenoble University and holds an MSc. in Water and Environmental Engineering from the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Steven is a Principal Research Fellow in NCAS-Climate and Head of the NCAS-Climate Tropical Group. His research interests are in tropical climate variability, tropical convection and sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction. Current research is on the transitions between suppressed and active convection coupled to large-scale tropical circulations using novel approaches for parametrizing the large-scale dynamics and seasonal to decadal prediction for the improvement of European climate services.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Richard Washington is Professor of Climate Science at the School of Geography and the Environment and Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. He specialises in African climate science and runs the African Climate research group. Richard’s research is concerned with the African climate systems, including climate change, the mechanisms leading to floods and drought and the way these characteristics of climate are represented in climate models. He has also worked on aerosols, particularly on dust storms in the central Sahara and in southern Africa.

Role: Researcher

Katinka holds an MSc. in Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town. In her MSc. research she looked at the vulnerability of small-scale farmers in Mpumalanga and how they are coping with climate variability and change. Katinka works on climate change adaptation projects.

Role: Researcher

Gina is a geographer by training, with 12 years of experience in the field of adaptation and vulnerability to global environmental change. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science researching issues related to development in the context of climate change. Gina completed her Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Oxford in 2002 after completing her BSc. at the University of Cape Town and her Honours in Environmental Water Management at Rhodes University.

Role: Researcher

Ruwani Walawege is Climate system Analyst at the University of Cape Town. Her expertise are in geography and meteorology. She has extensive skills in regional climate modelling and climate change communication.

Role: Knowledge Manager

Kristen has an MSc. in Climate Change and Sustainable Development with the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town. Her background includes an undergraduate degree in ecology and zoology from the University of the Witwatersrand, and honours in Biological Sciences at UCT. Her Masters focused on the resilience of traditionally agricultural communities encountering development with a case study on mPondo farmers of the Wild Coast. She is passionate about making a change in Africa and working towards a climate resilient and equitable future.

Role: Research Fellow

Julio is the research fellow and provides technical support for the Future Climate For Africa Project. He previously worked at Climate Systems Analysis Group (CSAG), where he was involved in a project that explores the impacts of and adaptation to climate change in the value chain for key grain and fruit sectors in South Africa. Julio holds a BSc. in Environmental and Geographical Science and a BSc. (Hons) and MSc. in Atmospheric Science from the University of Cape Town. His postgraduate research branched between climate science and viticulture as he explored drought impacts on grape production.

Role: Early Career Researcher

An environmental conservation enthusiast, Sandra Zenda has a wildlife management background. Her after-school career pathway as a research assistant led her to explore the field of climate change and variability as an area that affects nature conservation and its governance. Currently, she is an MPhil. student and embedded researcher for FRACTAL under a START-GEC project with a special focus on the climate-water-energy nexus in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe.

Role: Research Fellow

Owiti is a Research Fellow providing support to the CCKE. His background includes undergraduate and MSc. degrees in Meteorology from the University of Nairobi and a Ph.D. in Climate System and Global Change from Najing University of Information, Science and Technology. His interests include integration of climate information and products in policy development, planning and practice in various sectors. He has previously been deployed to a number of humanitarian organizations as a climate change adaptation and resilience specialist within the framework of the Norwegian Capacity and the Global Framework for Climate Services.

Role: CCKE Lead

Suzanne leads the Climate Services Practice Area at SSN. She heads up the Coordination, Capacity Building and Knowledge Exchange Unit (CCKE) of  the Future Climate for Africa programme and is the coordinator for Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) TRANSFORM project. She is also the Head of Country Engagement for Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN). Previously, Suzanne managed SSN’s portfolio of  CDKN projects in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya. Prior to joining SSN, Suzanne worked for the British High Commission in South Africa where she led on their bilateral engagement with South Africa on climate change and energy. Prior to that she freelanced for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin covering mostly UNFCCC climate negotiations. Suzanne holds a PhD in climatology from the University of Cape Town.

Role: Researcher

Ross is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at UCT.

Role: Researcher

Daleen is a researcher in the Climate studies, Modelling and Environmental Health research group at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Her research interests lie in the application of climate models to address the impact of climate change on agricultural systems in Southern Africa. Her focus also extends to research and projects which contribute to more effective translation and dissemination of the climate information that we generate, to be most useful for end users in the agricultural sector.

Role: Researcher

Edmund is a Ph.D. Student at Sokoine University of Agriculture

Role: Researcher

Madaka is the Deputy Director of the Institute of Resource Assessment, University of Dar Es Salaam and a Senior Program Officer for the African Climate Change Fellowship Program.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator

Patrick is a researcher at the University of Dar Es Salaam.

Role: Researcher

Dr Warbuton is a researcher at the University of KwaZulu Natal.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Shenge’s topic is: Ground-truthing of the civil society weather observations from the Whatsapp group “Weather chasers Malawi”. Shenge will investigate the opportunities to ground-truth civil society’s weather observations in Malawi by assessing the multiple purpose communication of the Whatsapp group “Weather chasers Malawi.” Shenge will identify the various uses, purposes and outcomes of the Whatsapp group, link the civil society’s weather observations to forecasting in Malawi and analyse the practicality of such Whatsapp group for hydrological and metrological science and governance.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Balungile’s research topic is: Structuring Disaster Data for Preventive Disaster Risk Planning and Management In Malawi. Balungile will evaluate the disaster data recorded at local communities and districts for the national Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA). Balungile will structure the recorded data, analyse the spatial and temporal patterns of disaster events and their impacts, and assess Malawi’s disaster risk management policy. The project aims at improving the practicality of the disaster data, and suggest improvements that will assist in future disaster risk management.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Lizeth is currently completing her MSc. in Hydrology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She is investigating the likely consequences of changes in key climate metrics on the yields from smallholder sugar cane and tea outgrower schemes, and exploring the implications thereof on livelihoods in Southern Malawi. Lizeth will be using the ACRU and AquaCrop models for analysing the climate change impacts on yields, and socioeconomic information regarding the outgrower schemes from interviews and literature. Biophysical and socioeconomic data will be linked using the GCF Framework for Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments.

Role: Early Career Researcher

Xolisile works at Illovo South Africa. She will be investigating the effects of climate change on the productivity in commercial sugarcane farming and milling in Malawi and South Africa, and analyse the effectiveness of current management practices in mitigating the effects of climate change on sugar cane. Xolisile will use future projections of yield to inform strategic decision-making by Illovo. Xolisile holds a BSc. (Hons) in Environmental and Geographical Science from UCT.