Shayan is currently a postgraduate at ACDI working toward a MSc in Climate Change and Sustainable Development. His dissertation focuses on synergies between South Africa's NDP, the SDGs and a downscaled planetary boundaries framework. Professionally, Shayan has ten years of experience working in sustainable development in the US, Qatar, South Africa and Australia. Originally from San Francisco, Shayan worked with the United Nations Association while completing a BA in International Relations in California. He then worked alongside Qatar’s Ministry of Environment, the FIFA World Cup 2022 Committee and the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa to integrate sustainability policies into development planning. He helped co-author national standards for utilising recycled plastic and tyre waste while working as a country manager in Qatar, and served as a contributing author on UNEP's GEO6 report. More recently, Shayan has been working as a sustainability manager in Australia, focusing on advancing blue carbon projects and solutions to ocean plastic.
Lindsey has a BA (Hons) in Pure and Applied Biology from the University of Oxford, an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, London, and a DPhil from the University of Oxford, specialising in the long-term ecology of east African Savannas. From 2002-2006, she was Trapnell Fellow in African Terrestrial Ecology at the University of Oxford. Lindsey Gillson joined the Plant Conservation Unit and Botany Department at UCT in April 2006, as a Lecturer in Plant Conservation Biology. She was promoted to Senior Lecturer from 2009, Associate Professor from 2011, and Professor from January 2021. Lindsey’s work covers themes of long-term vegetation change, ecosystem management and conservation, with a particular focus on African ecosystems. She teaches aspects of Conservation , Ecosystem Management, Global Change and Applied Palaeoecology at undergraduate, honours and masters levels. Internationally, she is currently a member of the PAGES (Past Global Changes) Scientific Steering Committee, and the Centre for Australian Biodiversity and Cultural Heritage Centre Advisory Committee. At UCT, she is Deputy Director of the Plant Conservation Unit and is a member of the Science Faculty Animal Ethics Committee and the Environment and Management Working Group. She is Associate Editor of Anthropocene.
Louise Gammage is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Cape Town, having completed her PhD under the co-supervision of Profs Astrid Jarre and Charles Mather (Memorial University, NL, Canada) in the SCIFR project. Trained as an environmental geographer, Louise’s current interdisciplinary work focuses on marine social-ecological systems (SESs) and fisheries specifically within the context of South Africa. Her research, taking a systems view, focuses on using integrative and iterative methods to promote understanding of and inform decision-making in marine SESs at various scales of interaction. Particularly, Louise’s research interests include exploring innovative methodologies, such as structured decision-making tools and participatory modelling, to (amongst others) address challenges related to scale and decision-making in complex adaptive systems; understanding drivers of change in SESs with an eye to improving present and future decision-making; and exploring ways for local stakeholders (such as fishers) to build capacity to enhance their well-being while informing governance and policy at the larger decision-making scales through the use of approaches such as scenario planning. She has experience with semi-quantitative modelling techniques (such as cognitive causal mapping and Bayesian network modelling), qualitative and quantitative data, interviews and surveys, group facilitation, scenario planning and fieldwork.
With a professional background in marine systems ecology, I have been specializing on an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAF) since the late 1980s. My research emphasis has been on exploited marine systems experiencing pronounced environmental signals, and in developing societies. My research interests include the development of ecosystem indicators for fisheries management, systems modelling, modelling with stakeholders and developing inter- and transdisciplinary research methodology. I have senior experience in developing scientific advice for management of human activities in the ocean. Holding the South African Research Chair in Marine Ecology and Fisheries, my current research focuses on developing methodology for structured decision making with regards to human activities in marine social-ecological systems under global change, notably in the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem. Our “Southern Cape Interdisciplinary Fisheries Research” Project is the focus of learning how the natural and social sciences, as well as the humanities, can collaborate with each other, and with fishers and their communities on their way to improved sustainability.
Sheona Shackleton joined the ACDI as Deputy Director in January 2018. 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. 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 after being part of the startup team for a University of the Witwatersrand interdisciplinary unit in the late 1980s (Wits Rural Facility). Her interest in engaged scholarship and knowledge co-production arises from both a practical research and ethical perspective (where she has experiences of social learning approaches to knowledge co-production), but also an academic one in terms of how best to integrate knowledge co-production processes into our teaching and learning and to support such an approach in our postgraduate research. Sheona and her project team were awarded the VC’s Distinguished Community Engagement Award for their social leaning work on climate change, HIV/AIDs and vulnerability in 2015. Sheona is on the board of the journals World Development and Land, is a member of ASSAF and has reviewed proposals for a wide range of organisations including NRF, VW Foundation, DFID, Belmont Foundation, SPACES and others. She has served on several national government and non-government committees in areas related to her expertise. She has experience coordinating large projects and a well-established network of international partners and collaborators. She has published her work extensively both in academic books and journals, but also the more popular media, and has reviewed papers for some 30 different journal titles.
Anna is a geographer / environmental scientist specializing in urban climate adaptation, with a particular interest in transformative ways of governing water-related risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change and urbanization. She engages in transdisciplinary research on climate resilient, sustainable urbanism, public decision making and multi-level governance. The research directions she is actively pursuing are: (1) understanding the institutional and organizational requirements for climate resilient urban (ground)water governance; and (2) developing a transdisciplinary methodology for climate-sensitive decision analysis. Anna has 15 years of experience working on research and consulting projects of various shapes and sizes, all related in some way to climate risks and adaptation. Anna’s PhD and post-doctoral work focused on climate adaptation in urban contexts, notably in Cape Town, Windhoek, Durban, Harare and Lusaka through the Mistra Urban Futures, CLIMWAYS, FRACTAL, LIRA 2030 and GreenGov projects. She completed her PhD entitled ‘Urban climate adaptation as a process of organisational decision making’ in 2017, investigating three cases of urban climate adaptation in the City of Cape Town. Prior to joining ACDI, Anna worked with the Climate System Analysis Group (CSAG) and the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at UCT. She continues to work on collaborative projects with CSAG and ACC colleagues. Before joining UCT, Anna worked for the Stockholm Environment Institute, at their office in Oxford, UK.