Speakers

Mark New is the ACDI Director and AXA Research Chair in African Climate Risk. He is also a coordinating lead author on the IPCC 6^th Assessment Report, responsible for Chapter 17 of Working Group II, Decision Making Options for Managing Risk, and an editor for Global Environmental Change and Environmental Research Letters. Mark serves on the Science Committees of the World Adaptation Science Programme and the South African Global Change Science Programme.

Sunita Facknath, BSc, MSc, PhD (UK), PhD (Mauritius) is a Professor in Sustainable Agriculture and the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius.

She has expertise in the field of sustainable agriculture, indigenous knowledge systems, and climate change, and has also worked in the areas of aquaculture and sustainable forestry.

Ernest Aryeetey is the foundation Secretary‐General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), a network of 16 of Africa’s flagship universities. He is a Professor of Economics and former Vice Chancellor of University of Ghana (2010‐2016).

He was also previously Director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) (2003‐2010) at University of Ghana and the first Director of the Africa Growth Initiative of Brookings Institution, Washington D.C.

Sheona Shackleton is the Deputy Director at ACDI. She also holds an Honorary Professorship with the Department of Environmental Science at Rhodes University. Sheona has worked at the interface between rural development, livelihoods and natural resource use and management 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.

Chris is the former Director of the Institute of Environment and Sanitation Studies and is the current CDKN Country Engagement Lead for Ghana. He is an environmental scientist with special interests in the biodiversity and functioning of coastal, wetland and freshwater systems, and many years of experience as a limnologist and aquatic resource management advisor. Over the past three decades, he has been involved in policy development in Ghana for covering environment and natural resource issues. He serves on the UNEP World Adaptation Science Programme and is an Earth Commissioner.

Daniel is Associate Professor at the Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation, and the Department of Geology at the University of Nairobi. His current research focuses on the interactions of groundwater, surface water, climate, environment and human linkages, with a special focus on eastern Africa. He has been involved in capacity strengthening activities in local, regional and international contexts and for a diverse range of stakeholders – from grassroots levels, to management, policy-making groups and government agencies.

Christopher Trisos directs the Climate Risk Lab at the African Climate and Development Initiative. The lab integrates data and methods from environmental and social sciences to help inform rapid, just and equitable responses to the climate crisis. Current research questions include climate change risks to biodiversity and whether ecological disruption from climate change will be gradual or abrupt, climate change risks to the biodiversity of wild-harvested food plants, how climate change impacts the prevalence of infectious disease, whether solar geoengineering increases climate change risks, and how to manage risk across interconnected social and environmental systems.

Nick Simpson is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Africa Climate & Development Initiative (ACDI), University of Cape Town. He is the Chapter Scientist for Chapter 9 “Africa Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” of the 6th Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Nick’s current research concentrates on the complexity of climate risk, how everyday African’s perceive climate change, energy poverty / access, and security practices at the interface of climate change and conflict. Nick's previous research has extended security studies to the governance of new 'Anthropocene' risks / harms.

Christopher has a background in computer science and ocean/atmospheric science with particular expertise in high performance computing and computing platforms and dynamical and statistical modeling and analysis. Over the past 10 years Christopher has also built extensive experience in science-society engagement and communications, and more recently, decision making under uncertainty and multi/trans-disciplinary research. This experience has been developed through a mix of consulting/advisory activities as well as academic research activities in partnerships with a wide network of collaborators across the region and internationally.

Marieke Norton joined the ACDI as Masters Convener in January 2017. She has a background in Social Anthropology, with a focus on environmental anthropology. She completed her PhD at UCT in 2014, on the topic of marine resource law enforcement in the Western Cape, as a transdisciplinary project between Social Anthropology and the Ma-Re Institute.

Her personal and research interests are on the interactions between humanity and the environment, and the relations between these spheres that sustain, shape and change each other. Her research and publications have been specifically geared towards re-thinking the relations between the natural and social sciences, in order to establish modes of collaboration that reframe the issues of climate change and sustainable development as interdisciplinary projects that support and innovate human and non-human well-being.

Dr. Shem O. Wandiga is Professor of Chemistry at the department of Chemistry, University of Nairobi and has been the Acting Director, Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation until recently. Professor Wandiga was the Principal Investigator in project called “Capacity building to evaluate and adapt to climate-change-induced vulnerability to malaria and cholera in the Lake Victoria Region under the GEF funded, UNEP executed and START and TWAS implemented project: Assessment of Impact and Adaptation to Climate Change. He was the Coordinator of another GEF funded, UNEP implemented and ACTS executed project on integrating vulnerability and adaptation to climate change into sustainable development policy planning and implementation in eastern and southern Africa: KENYA Pilot Project Design: Increasing Community Resilience to Drought in Makueni District.

Melanie Skead is the Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Stellenbosch University. Previously, she was a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL) at Rhodes University and Senior Manager of Teaching Development at Nelson Mandela University. She has been working in Higher Education since 1988 and holds a PhD in English and two professional qualifications in education including a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education (Academic Development) from Rhodes University. Melanie has been active in academic development since 2003. Her experience in the field spans across student, staff and curriculum development as well as academic leadership at various higher education institutions including Vista University, Fort Hare and Nelson Mandela University and Rhodes University, where she coordinated the National and Rhodes PGDip (HE) and supervised PhD students.

Dr George Odera Outa is a researcher with over 30 years’ of teaching experience at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. As an environmental lawyer, he has also more recently proposed the imperative of international jurisdiction over national forest management on the basis of Indigenous knowledges and cultures, such as those of the Ogiek of Kenya in the Mau Forest conflict. He is a laureate of the St Andrews Prize for the Environment, and a lecturer at the Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation at the University of Nairobi.