Meet the team

Contact: h.lotz-sisitka@ru.ac.za

Affiliation: I hold a Tier 1 South African National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Technology Chair in Global Change and Social Learning Systems. My research Chair is based in the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University, South Africa which I directed for 15 years (2000-2015).

Key focus: The current focus of the Chair’s research is transformative social learning and green skills learning pathways in areas of biodiversity, the water food nexus, climate change, social and environmental justice, and just sustainability transitions.

My research interests: My research interests include critical research methodologies, transformative social learning, and education system transformation.

Transformations interest: I am engaged in transformations research in a variety of different socio-ecological contexts with a focus on expansive, transformative and transgressive learning research, and socially engaged forms of research.

Contact: cpahlwos@uni-osnabrueck.de

I am a full professor for resources management at the Institute for Environmental Systems Research (USF) in Osnabrück, Germany.

Research Interest: My research interests include the water governance, adaptive water management, social and societal learning, water-energy-food nexus and SDG implementation and social-ecological-network analysis.

Relation to transformations: Regarding transformations, I have developed a conceptual approach building on the concept of triple-loop learning and multi-level transformative change. Research has included both place-based action research projects with active stakeholder participation and comparative case study analyses aiming at finding more general patterns for understanding transformative change. As we note in the management of floods and droughts crises may be a driver for transformative change. Hence I have started to become quite interested in understanding the implications of the current Corona Virus Crisis on governance capacity in general, a topic we might also address in our discussions on transformative change in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus.

Other interests: I love cycling (mountain or racing bike) and hiking. The slower pace of hiking compared to cycling allows exploring the environment in more depth and detail. Nevertheless climbing mountains with a bike is just great!

Contact: michelleh@wrc.org.za

Affiliation: Senior Knowledge Coordinator: Ecological Infrastructure for Water Security Project, Water Research Commission, South Africa,

And PhD student at Rhodes University Environmental Learning Research Centre

Key words: Social learning, communities of practice, social realism, monitoring and evaluation, ecological infrastructure, mentoring

Relation to transformations: Through social learning and knowledge mediation, the EI 4 Water Security project aims to improve integration of biodiversity and ecosystem services into the water value chain in the Berg-Breede and uMngeni River catchments. I hope to learn from other initiatives, share our challenges and transformative approaches and strengthen coordination between the project and other initiatives in these catchments.

Other things about me: Special interest in supporting young professionals and sustainable small-scale food agriculture initiatives. I am mom to a spider loving son and a unicorn loving daughter

Contact: Stuart-Hills@ukzn.ac.za

Affiliation: I was a lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a senior researcher at the Centre of Water Resources Research since 2014. I recently joined the Department of Integrated Sciences, Universität Koblenz-Landau. A specific focus of my research is mainstreaming, decision making and participatory processes relating to sustainable development and climate change adaptation.

Research interest: My research domain is therefore ‘Sustainable Transformations’ within which my interest lies with practices and tools within water and natural resource management and governance. Such practices range from technical (modeling) to participatory (citizen science) and may assist – or not – in horizontal and vertical integration. My mission is to contextualize such practices and tools in order to find ‘the right mix’ for sustainable and inclusive development. Therefore, most of my research endeavors rest on mixed methods and transdisciplinary approaches working in co-production modes with government, society and industry.

Due to the aim to support South Africa’s sustainable development trajectory and create change for social-wellbeing, I have been engaging in manifold leadership roles with in the South African water sector over the past years. My currently most active roles are the co-chair of the Research Sub-Committee of the Umgeni Ecological Infrastructure Partnership, founding member and organizer of the uMngeni School of Water Governance Research, my memberships in the Upper Mgeni Catchment Management Forum and the Msunduzi Catchment Management Forum. Further, I am also a member of the ‘Reference Group for governance arrangements for decentralised water resource management’, co-hosted by the Water Research Commission and the National Minister for Water and Sanitation.

Contact: thanyani.reuben@gmail.com

Affiliation: PhD scholar at the Environmental Learning Research Centre, Rhodes University, South Africa. I am also a Research Associate for Biodiversity & Natural Resource Management at the Association for Water and Rural Development (AWARD), which is a developmental NGO working with multi-disciplinary and social learning approaches in the context of sustainable natural resource management and catchment management.

Key focus: My current research is on the exploration of tools and pathways to support transformative Learning and Agency in Natural Resource management practices, through formative intervention social learning approaches. My work is mainly rooted in supporting transformative learning in community settings, working with different community of practices (ranging from local communities, civil society organisations, private and government agencies) in areas of biodiversity and livelihoods, catchment management, and climate change adaptations.

Research interests: My research interests include co-engaged transformative social learning approaches, green skills learning pathways, integrated landscape management, youth and rural communities’ development, for sustainable livelihoods and socio-ecological justice in the global change context.

Contact: kpringle@rsi.org.za

Catherine has a background in environmental science and environmental law and currently operates as an independent researcher. Her doctoral research applies a social-ecological systems lens to expand on emerging theory on system coherence and its role in building general resilience within the context of water governance. She is now part of the Resilient Systems Institute in South Africa.

Research interest: Catherine has a special interest in social-ecological systems, resilience, ecosystem services, and water resource governance and management. Her work focuses on the interface between ecosystems and human well-being, particularly the ecological systems and processes that underpin ecosystem service provision at a landscape level, how environmental change affects these systems, and how we can track change and build resilience.

Contact: m.weaver@ru.ac.za

Affiliation: Post-Doc at Institute for Water Research at Rhodes University

Matthew is passionate about the conservation of Africa’s natural resources and wishes to contribute to the development of sustainable use practices through social learning and agency development processes towards a broader awareness of the true global value of Africa’s natural resources.

Research interest: His current academic interests broadly relate to addressing problems centred on social-ecological issues. Matthew relishes the challenge of working on these problems as they are typically complex, uncertain, involve multiple stakeholders with outcomes that are mostly transformative – engender positive societal and environmental change. Continuing from his PhD, his current practice involves applying social learning and transformative agency development in land and catchment restoration processes.

Contact: n.odume@ru.ac.za

Affiliation: Dr Nelson Odume is a Senior Researcher and the Director of the Unilever Centre for Environmental Water Quality within the Institute for Water Research at Rhodes University. He holds a PhD degree in Water Resource Science from Rhodes University.

Research interest: He has over 10 years of research experience in the field of water resources with interest in water quality, water governance and ethics, social-ecological systems, applied aquatic ecology and pollution science. His research has received local and international awards, including being the first recipient of the Emerging River Leader Award by the International River Foundation, Australia and the Bronze Medal Award by the Southern Africa Society of Aquatic Scientists in recognition of his contribution to water quality management in South Africa. He has published scholarly papers and presented at conferences in the field of applied ecology, water quality and water governance and ethics.

Contact: rmeissner@csir.co.za

Richard is an Associate Professor at the University of South Africa's Department of Political Sciences. Prior to joining UNISA in February 2021, he was a Senior Researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research's (CSIR) Water Centre. He holds a Doctoral Degree in International Politics from the University of Pretoria.

Research interest: Richard specialises in a number of study areas ranging from water security at local government level to the analysis of transboundary river basins. His research focuses on the complexities and interactions between and among non-state actors, international organisations, and state/government organs. He was a member of the CSIR team that investigated the influence of climate variability and its effects such as drought and flooding on migrant workers to South Africa. He has vast experience in doing fieldwork in South Africa and abroad. At UNISA he teaches post-graduate modules on conflict, peace and security as well as advanced studies on foreign policy.

Current project: I am currently working on an article that will report on an investigation in the green and ecological infrastructure policy landscape of the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality. I am also investigating the transnational role and involvement of scientists in diplomatic efforts concerning the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Learning goal: What I would like to learn from the workshop is everything and anything that would help me grow as a researcher.

Contact: jimtaylor835@gmail.com

Affiliation: University of KwaZulu-Natal, ESD Expert-Net and UN Regional Centre of Expertise

Key words: Social Change and Sustainability, Learning, Transformation. Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL).

Relation to transformations: I am interested in co-engaged research with people around topics of sustainability. Citizen science tools in support of action learning are a further interest area. As a member of the ESD Expert-Net programme we are currently offering mentoring programmes in Germany, Mexico, India and South Africa.

Contact: j.cockburn@ru.ac.za

Affiliation: Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Science at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Key words: Multi-stakeholder collaboration, multi-functional landscapes, stewardship, livelihoods, transdisciplinary and engaged research, relationality, social learning and knowledge co-production processes.

Relation to transformations: My work focuses on rural multifunctional landscapes and catchments, which are key sites in which to study WEF-nexus challenges relating to water, land and livelihoods. They are also useful sites in which to explore and support transformative processes related to achieving sustainability and equity outcomes for the diverse actors who utilise and manage landscapes. My interest in understanding how the various actors (or stakeholders) in landscapes works together offers potential insights into the collaborative or collective transformation processes related to agency, learning, structure and power. I am also interested in the role that researchers can play in transformative processes through transdisciplinary research and engaged knowledge co-production approaches. I am involved in the Tsitsa Project, which is a multi-stakeholder initiative looking to build resilience towards sustainable and equitable landscapes and livelihoods in the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa.

Other information about you: I am happily married to a local lawyer and we share our home with two young cats. I enjoy stretching my body and mind through yoga, hiking, reading, creative cooking and wine-drinking, and building friendships with people from diverse cultural backgrounds

Contact: sheona.shackleton@uct.ac.za

Affiliation: Sheona Shackleton is Professor and Deputy Director of the African Climate and Development Initiative at UCT.

Research interest: Sheona has worked at the interface between rural development, livelihoods and natural resource use and management, and climate change for the past 35 years. Her research and postgraduate supervision has covered a diversity of areas within this broad theme such as community conservation, rural livelihoods and vulnerability, ecosystem services and human well-being, forest product use and commercialisation, natural resource governance and climate change adaptation.

Current focus of projects: Her current research focusses on livelihood and landscape (social-ecological) change, with a particular interest in climate change as a driver and how it interacts with other shocks and stressors to influence adaptation, transformation and future livelihood trajectories.

Sheona has been engaged in interdisciplinary, participatory and transdisciplinary research for most of her career. She has experience coordinating large projects and a well-established network of international partners and collaborators. Current projects relate to ecosystem based adaptation and ecological infrastructure, landscape approaches to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction; and climate change and inequality.

Contact: Larissa.koch@uos.de

Affiliation: PhD candidate at Institute for Environmental Systems Research at Osnabrück University

Research interest: Narratives, Social networks, social dynamics, collaborative environmental governance, resource management

Current project: My PhD research focuses on local collaborative networks that facilitate or hamper regional implementation of environmental policies like the EU Habitat Directive. I am especially interested to find out about the social dynamics in networks, how the social network evolved over time and how social relationships and roles of members changed. I developed a mixed-method approach that combines narrative and social network research to examine the social dynamics in networks.

Relation to transformations: From my point of view, transformations materialize in small changes in our use of (daily) language and our direct social relationships that we pursue to achieve goals. The analysis of grand narratives can help to see the bigger picture of transformations, while an analysis of individual narrations and social networks can help to detect micro or meso modifications.

Learning goal: I am curious about agency and how it is related to transformative change.

Other things about me: I love go running with my dog in the forest and I generally like to be outside. I love good, organic food and baking cakes.

Contact: pretorius.lulu@gmail.com

Affiliation: Post-doc position at UKZN, working on integrating climate information into decision-making

Key words: Wetland ecology, -management, -conservation; Water resource management; Climate Change adaptation and decision-making

She has worked as an environmental and ecological consultant. From 2012 she is a director and board member of a small NGO called the Centre for Wetland Research and Training (WetResT), through which she partakes in research projects, student training, capacity building activities, and acting in an advisory capacity for stakeholders from all spheres, on a part-time basis. Between 2012 and 2015, she acted as a research coordinator on a German-South African collaborative research project on peatlands in South Africa. Thereafter she took up a post-doc position as part of the Durban Research Action Partnership (D’RAP), as an embedded researcher in the eThekwini Municipality; where she worked on integrating climate information into decision-making.

Relation to transformations: I am currently working on a LIRA2030 project called ‘Transforming southern African cities in a changing climate’. The project looks at various water management programmes in Durban, whether they have potential to be cases of transformative adaptation to climate change, and if so, whether and to what scale they are achieving this potential. Furthermore, I am involved in some small-scale adaptation work, which has a WEF aspect in rural Zululand.

Contact: nadiasitas@gmail.com

Current position: Senior researcher, Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST), Stellenbosch University

Project: USAID funded Resilient Waters Project working in Okavango and Limpopo River basins working in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and UKRI GCRF project entitled Equitable Resilience with case studies in South Africa and Kenya

Key words: Equity, resilience, social-ecological systems, power, ecosystem services, knowledge co-production, science-policy interface

Relation to transformations: I am involved in a number of projects that have an intended vision of surfacing transformative actions and response options to both imagine and attempt to build more resilient and equitable interlinked food, water and energy systems. The GCRF project focuses on surfacing issues related to equity in horticultural value chains in the Breede and Groot Letaba catchments in South Africa, and Lake Naivavasha and Mount Kenya regions in Kenya- looking at who is burdened/benefits from resilience building activities across scales- from small scale farmers to UK retailers- especially in the context of droughts and other systemic risks. The Resilient Waters project focuses enhancing transboundary governance of resources (water, access to land for conflicting uses) through working with transboundary organisations (river basin organisations, transfrontier conservation authorities, SADC thematic programmes and NGOs) in order to strengthen institutional governance, and support livelihood, WASH and biodiversity conservation interventions. I also have a number of post-graduate students working on these projects on related issues.

Other things: Feminist, pracademic, overenthusiastic GIF user and currently totally distracted and involved in community work in response to COVID-19 crisis. Kids might burst in at any point

Contact: tally.palmer@ru.ac.za

Director Institute for Water Research, and ARUA Water Centre of Excellence

Key words: Transdisciplinary, engaged, action research for sustainable water futures. A critical consideration of the beneficiaries of engaged research in the context of social-ecological justice. Aquatic ecology and water quality.

Relation to Transformations: I have three main projects: the Tsitsa Project, Water for Africa SDGS: developing African capabilities, and Unlocking resilient benefits from African water resources. Each of these projects includes understanding the implications of seeing the world in terms of complex social-ecological systems; and therefore the need for transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge co-production; and therefore the need to be attentive to transformative learning processes. The idea of social-ecological justice is central, so epistemic justice becomes a focus of transformative learning. I am using the development of participatory governance as the “action space” of research exploration.

Other things: I am a delighted and passionate grandmother. For me, spiritual dimensions underpin the material.

Contact: cvanbers@tias-web.info

Affiliation: Research Associate at Institute for Environmental Systems Research, Geography Department, Osnabrück University.

Key words: Sustainable food production and consumption, food security, WEF Nexus approach, climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction, stakeholder involvement and participatory processes

adaptive water management, integrated assessment.

Relation to transformations: One focus of my work has been on human behaviour and the dynamics of governance in the context of food systems, and, in particular, the pre-conditions and processes that bring about transformations to sustainable food systems.

Learning Goal: Acquiring insights into learning processes that trigger transformations in food systems and consumption behaviour.