The Team
Universities
Professor
Associate Professor
Joy Obando is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Kenyatta University Kenya. She is a Co-Investigator in the BRECcIA Project. She is involved in research, training and community outreach. She has facilitated and mentored early career scientists through grant writing activities. Currently her research focuses on watershed management and water (in) security. She is involved in mentoring initiatives aimed at enhancing the quality of the next generation of academicians.
Dr. Fiona Wairimu Ngarachu
Post-doctoral research fellow
Fiona works on the BRECcIA project in Kenyatta University under the policy and capacity building theme. The key focus in her current role is to undertake research that helps us to understand policy making agendas, processes and mechanisms concerning food and water security in Kenya, Malawi and Ghana. Fiona is also the Kenya stakeholder country coordinator working with a number of partners to ensure that stakeholder priorities are integrated within the project. One of the ways Fiona is doing this is by responding to identified policy makersâ needs for capacity around food and water security policy by conducting a capacity needs assessment as well as co-designing an intervention to address the policy makersâ capacity gaps. Fiona has previously conducted both qualitative and quantitative research around refugee resettlement and reproductive health.
Reader of Development Geography
Dr Kate Schreckenberg is a researcher with a special interest in natural resource governance and the institutional arrangements that deliver equitable and just development. She works predominantly with mixed methods, including participatory research techniques, value chain approaches, household surveys and natural resource inventories.
Director
Read BRECcIA’s testimony to John here.
Prof. John Obiri had over two decades of experiences in research leadership, natural resource management, conflict/disaster risk reduction and environmental conservation in Africa.
He worked for the government, private organisations and universities in four different countries – Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa and the United Kingdom.
John was a member of various global professional organisations and was a trained and practising auditor in ISO 9001/2015 (international quality management standards); and an accredited lead expert in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in Kenya.
Until his passing in 2021, John was the Director of the Directorate of Postgraduate Studies (Graduate School) at MMUST, Kenya. Previously he worked as a Project Manager at the University of Wales, Bangor (UK), Programme Coordinator at University of Natal (South Africa) and Research Officer at the Kenya Forestry Research Institute. His latest research interests were on disaster risk reduction, climate change, research management and the development of early career researchers.
Dr. Edward M. Mugalavai
Kaleb Mwendwa Adamba
Senior Lecturer and Director
Dr. Namenya Daniel Naburi
Post Doctorate Research Fellow
Dr. Namenya Daniel Naburi, Climate change, Environment, Disaster Management and Sustainable DevelopmentâŻenthusiast, was a Post Doctorate Research Fellow with the BRECcIA project. Namenya over the past 14 years has been involved in various research projects in environment, social development, governance, public participation and decentralised public administration applying qualitative and quantitative research methods. He has vast experience as an environment and development research consultant having worked for various International Non-Governmental Organisations and Government of Kenya donor-funded projects in the Drylands/Arid and Semi-Arid Lands of Kenya. He has also successfully implemented research projects in Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania in addition to the BRECcIA project countries (Malawi and Ghana).
His research interest in the BRECcIA project was on the analysis of trends in climate change, land use and cover changes, watershed governance and its implications on food security; socio-ecological impacts of Prosopis Juliflora plant species on pastoralism livelihoods with special interest to measurable indicators of adaptive capacity, governance and co-management in the drylands river basins. His contributions were also acknowledged in other Large Research Projects (LRPs), Small Research Projects (SRPs), policy stakeholdersâ engagements, and community capacity building forums in the project. Namenya continue to engage in post- BRECcIA project activities and networks including ReMNet and DryNet. Currently, he is a senior lecturer in community development at Africa Nazarene University, Kenya; he also consults in infrastructure projects as an environmental safeguards specialist in Kenya.
He is a registered member with the; Christian and Scientific Association of Kenya (CSA-K), Association of Disaster Management and Conflict Resolution of Kenya (ADMCRK), Environmental Institute of Kenya (EIK), licensed Lead Expert in Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) and Environmental Audit (EA) with the National Environment Management Authority, Kenya (NEMA-K). He is registered under the following links: ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6721-1107; Web of Science ResearcherID: ADE-9210-2022, https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/rid/ADE-9210-2022;
Researchgate:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Namenya-Naburi.
Dr Luke Olang
Department of Biosystems and Environmental Engineering, Senior Lecturer and Researcher
Lecturer
Francis Oloo
Post-doctoral Researcher
Francis Oloo is an expert in Geographic Information Science with interest in the application of GIS, Remote Sensing and Spatial simulation models in understanding, representing and addressing socio-spatial vulnerabilities in Africa. Francis has had a progressive experience of more than 15 years in the application of multidisciplinary aspects of geospatial methods to support decision making in agronomy, land health and land degradation monitoring, estimation of aboveground biomass, water resource mapping and community-based resource planning. Francis is also a lecturer in geoinformatics and current (2022-2023) acting Director of the School of Surveying and Spatial Sciences at the Technical University of Kenya. In addition, Francis is an Adjunct lecturer at iLabAfrica, Strathmore University. Outside academia, Francis is a co-founder and mentor at GeoPsy Research where he leads in capacity building and development of geospatial solutions to address questions in water, energy and health sectors and supports various non-profit organizations in mapping and visualizing their work in various geo-communication platforms.
Jannet Atieno Ondulo
Senior Assistant Registrar Officer
Sospeter Simiyu Wekesa
Research Assistant
Research Officer
Moses Asamoah will assist in collection, storage and analysis of data support and development of simple programs for the BRECcIA project and liaising between BRECcIA partners and stakeholders. He will also assist in dissemination and publication of research findings from the project. He is the BRECcIA Ghana Resilience Theme and Risk working group representative.
Prior to his current role, he was involved in a non-governmental organisation (NGO) focusing on health, specifically maternal, adolescent and child health. He collaborated with other agencies and stakeholders in implementing some interventions to improve maternal and infant survival. He gained experience in co-ordinating and organising community based interventions.
Stakeholder Co-ordinator
I have three yearsâ experience in managing climate change and development projects with funding from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and hosted by the Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana namely ‘DEltas, vulnerability and Climate Change: Migration and Adaptation’ (DECCMA) and the (Cities and Climate Change) Climate Smart Integrated Flood Management Projects. These are international projects focused on climate change, migration and adaptation in the Volta delta and flood risks management in Cities respectively. I therefore managed communications with the Consortium of participating institutions from India, Bangladesh and the UK team under DECCMA as well as among work packages within the Ghana team for both projects. The nature of my work makes it inevitable to collaborate with other team members within the country or outside towards the attainment of the project goals. Prior to this, I managed coalitions of individuals and organisations working on governance and climate change from a gender perspective as well as managed projects related to these fields for seven years. I currently work as the BRECcIA Ghana teamâs Stakeholder Coordinator.
Prof Maurice Monjerezi
Department of Chemistry, Associate Professor
Dr Maurice Monjerezi is an Associate Professor in Chemistry at the University of Malawi, Malawi. His research activities are on applied chemistry in the broad fields of the environment and food: (i) water and soil quality assessments to understand how changes in climate, hydro-biogeochemical processes, and anthropogenic pressure influence quality of ground- and surface water resources; and (ii) food chemistry, safety, and processing. He received the 2014 African Union-The World Academy of Sciences (AU-TWAS) Young Scientists National Award in the Earth and Life Sciences category. His current research projects include âClimate change and ecosystems management in Malawi and Tanzaniaâ funded by the NORAD, Norway. He is also Deputy Centre Leader for the Centre for Resilient Agri-food Systems (CRAFS) at the University of Malawi, which is established under the World Bank funded African Centres of Excellences (ACEs) project.
Frank Musa
Research Assistant
Frank Musa is a Research Assistant â Environmental Anthropology for the BRECcIA project at the University of Malawi. His main interest is in environmental management and climate change. Most recently he worked for the Malawi Government as a research fellow under Ministry of Finance Economic Planning and Development, responsible for climate change related research. Previously he also worked as a lead data officer for the ResilientAfrica Network project (RAN) that was implemented in Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The project focused on collecting and analysing qualitative data to understand the resilience dimension of households vulnerable to the impacts of floods and prolonged dry spells. He is conversant with mixed methods in social research as well as qualitative and quantitative data analysis.
Ellasy Chimimba
Research Assistant
Ellasy Chimimba is a research assistant in Earth Observation with BRECcIA. She is particularly interested to applying geology in improving agriculture production. Ellasy has also experience in geostatistical modelling. She was part of the research team that did an assessment to find out if climate smart agricultural practices were having an impact on improving maize production, in central Malawi. She also worked in a mine as a geologist in mineral resource and geology modelling, and was involved in carrying out some research, more of finding quick solutions to specific mine problems. Also a lecturer in Earth Sciences at Ndata School of Climate and Earth Sciences at Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST).
Henry Hunga
Research Assistant
Henry Hunga is a Research Assistant/Ph.D. Student (Early Career Researcher) with BRECcIA at University of Malawi, Chancellor College. He has implemented a number of projects for the past 12 years from on-farm/station research to outreach and capacity building of extension staff in aquaculture and agriculture (Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique). Of late he has developed interest on how research may inform policy formulation and implementation and help build resilience of agricultural production systems in developing countries that have been compounded by climate variability. He has done some analysis on development policies and how they influence national food and nutrition security in Malawi. His current work is looking at how national seed policies help build resilience among crop and livestock farmers in drylands of Malawi and Kenya; and the extent by which climate information services are mainstreamed into national plans and policies as part of an early warning system and a decision support tool for various sectors, agriculture in particular for Malawi, Kenya and Ghana.
Oscar Kambombe
Research Assistant
Oscar Kambombe is the BRECcIA Research Assistant in Hydrology at the University of Malawi. His interest is in hydrological modelling for decision support in the area of water resources and environmental management. Oscar also has a vast practical experience in land and water management, having worked as a government officer in the Department of Land Resources Conservation of Malawi for almost 10 years. He is currently studying for a PhD in Earth Sciences at the University of Malawi. His most recent research work is on the evaluation of socio-economic drivers of land use or land cover (LULC) change and their associated hydrological implications in the Lake Chilwa Basin, Malawi.
Cosmo Ngongondo
Professor
Cosmo Ngongondo is a Professor of Earth Sciences in the Department of Geography, Earth Sciences and Environment at the University of Malawi. He is the current Executive Dean of the School of Natural and Applied Sciences at UNIMA. Cosmo holds a PhD in Hydrology from the University of Oslo in Norway, an MSc in Water Resources Engineering and Management from the University of Zimbabwe and a BSc in Earth Sciences and Physics from the University of Malawi. His research interests are in the scientific assessments of impacts of climate change on key areas such as water resources and related other natural resources as well agricultural production. He has conducted analyses of climate change impacts in Malawi and southern Africa region. Current research projects include Advancing frequency analysis of nonstationary hydrological extremes for reducing flood risk in a changing climate, funded by the Norwegian Research Council (Forskerprosjekt – FRINATEK), 2018-2021, African Centres of Excellence 2 (ACE) Project and Climate change and ecosystems management in Malawi and Tanzania funded by the NORAD, Norway. His scientific research work in hydrological and climatic sciences was awarded the 2013 African Union-The World Academy of Sciences (AU-TWAS) Young Scientists National Award in the Earth and Life Sciences category.
Dr. Stephen Rwigi
Lecturer, Department of Earth and Climate Science
Dr. Stephen Rwigi is a lecturer in hydrometeorology and surface water resources in the Department of Earth and Climate Science (Meteorology). His most recent research is the assessment of the impacts of climate change and deforestation on surface water resources in the Mau forest complex in Kenya. Some of the published work from this research includes simulated impacts of climate change on surface water yields over the Sondu basin in Kenya and assessment of potential changes in hydrologically relevant rainfall statistics over the Sondu river basin in Kenya under a changing climate.
In relation the BRECcIA project Stephen will contributing his knowledge of hydrometeorology and modelling to water and food security in the drylands; specifically modelling of rainfall-runoff relationships in the drylands environment under a changing climate.
Professor of Hydrology and Remote Sensing
Professor Justin Sheffield is Professor of Hydrology and Remote Sensing at the University of Southampton, UK. His research is on fundamental and applied research on large-scale hydrology and its interactions with climate variability and change. He has published extensively on hydrological extremes, climate change, and hydrological processes from catchment to global scale, and on the application of research to hazards impacts reduction, and water and food security particularly in developing regions. He has received a number of awards including the 2014 Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water for work on drought monitoring and prediction, and the 2013 European Geosciences Union Plinius Medal for multi-disciplinary research and applications in hydrological hazards. He was named the 2019 Robert E. Horton Lecturer in Hydrology by the American Meteorological Society for advancing hydrologically coherent analyses of drought across scales, and pioneering the development of integrated drought monitoring tools for food-insecure countries
Researcher Developer â Lecturer in Academic Practice (Research)
Julie Reeves is currently the Researcher Developer at the University of Southampton, designing and delivering training and development programmes for doctoral researchers, research and academic staff. Currently, she is researching and reflecting on organisational development and appropriate models of development for higher education.
Professor in Remote Sensing, Geography and Environmental Science
Associate Professor, Geography and Environmental Science
Dr Wright’s current research looks at interventions to widen access to safe drinking-water and support the monitoring of this issue in low and middle income countries. Most recently, he has become interested in safe drinking-water access in urban areas, and livestock and drinking-water contamination. He often uses geospatial data manipulation and analysis, particularly when it comes to monitoring. He has worked in sub-Saharan Africa since the mid-1990s. His current projects focus on urban groundwater quality management in Ghana and on the management of livestock-related water contamination in Kenya.
Professor of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Professor of Artificial Intelligence, School of Electronics and Computer Science
Research Fellow
Dr. Anghileri is a research fellow in hydrology in the BRECcIA project. Her research is in the field of hydrology and water resources management. She is particularly interested in analysing the interaction between human activities and the natural environment. She combines models and optimisation techniques to analyse coupled human-natural water systems and decision-making problems to improve water use efficiency, sustainability, and promote an equitable share of water between conflicting uses. She has experience in several real-world water management problems concerning water security and protection from hydrological hazards, such as flood control and drought mitigation, water supply for food production and hydropower production.
Research Fellow
Dr Matt Kandel is a Research Fellow in Environmental Anthropology for BRECcIA. He is leading a small team on a participatory research and capacity building programme in Upper East region of Ghana and Kitui County in Kenya. Their research is focusing on how land restoration interventions integrate equity, resilience and variability (e.g. socio-ecological, biophysical) into their approaches. In conjunction with their research they will conduct participatory research methods training workshops for local researchers (e.g. postgraduate students, NGO employees), some of whom will go on to use their training in conducting research linked to BRECcIA. In addition to working in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi, Matt has conducted long-term fieldwork in north eastern Uganda on land tenure, conflict and agrarian change. Prior to coming to the University of Southampton Matt held a British Academy Newton International Fellowship in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London.
Senior Research Assistant
Genevieve has been involved in a wide range of international research and development projects in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 12 years. Her main focus of study has been local ecological knowledge and ecosystem service trade-offs in smallholder farming systems. She has taught on MSc level modules and research methods field courses and supervised dissertation projects specialising in agroforestry, tropical & temperate forestry. Her current research on the BRECcIA project at the University of Southampton focuses on the impact and efficacy of capacity building activities of the project. There is a large cohort of early career researchers on the project and the aim is to ensure they get the support they need through tailored professional development training and peer-to-peer exchange.
Dr Meryl Jagarnath
Senior Research Assistant
With a background both in physical and human geography, my research interests lie in studying the interactions and impacts between people and the environment. I particularly enjoy using spatial tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) to unpack the linkages between socio-ecological systems especially in the face of global and local sustainability challenges. My PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa focused on low carbon climate resilient development to identify areas within the Durban metropolitan that are at risk of major and rapid land use change and climate change impacts attributed to both (i) physical exposure and (ii) socio-economic development and livelihoods. This research was funded by the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). Specifically, I am interested in understanding the implications of global environmental change on natural resources, sustainability, and climate change resilience. Within BRECcIA, my research focuses on the structure, function, and processes of socio-ecological systems in drylands and assessing the vulnerability of these systems to climate variability and change.
Dr Chengxiu Li
Research Assistant
Chengxiu Li is a research assistant for the BRECcIA project. She has focused on mapping and monitoring vegetation using earth observation data. Her current project in BRECcIA is to monitor dynamics of cropland area and production and identify drivers in drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa. Working closely with local stakeholders, policy and resilience research theme in the project, she aims to contribute knowledge and understanding for informed and productive agriculture management. She worked on understanding alpine grassland ecosystems using remote sensing technologies in the University of Zurich, Switzerland for her Ph.D. degree. Specifically, she worked on how environmental variables and human activities affect grassland production and lead to grassland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
Ailish Craig
Masters Student
Ailish is a currently a Masters student with an interest in food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently she is looking at the relationship between food security and social capital in Malawi.
Sebastian Reichel
International Stakeholder Co-ordinator
Sebastian co-ordinated international stakeholder engagement and internationalisation of project research and outcomes for the BRECcIA project, in collaboration with the BRECcIA research teams in the UK and sub-Saharan Africa, and with UNESCO-IHP. Working with academics, NGOs, governments and peers, he lead International stakeholder engagement for water and food security research and capacity development within the project. He had previously worked on the EU-wide sustainability and migration education project ‘Start the Change!’ in the roles of project management and junior researcher on behalf of Germany, funded by the EU Commission.
Lucy Graves
Administrative Officer
Regional Centers
AGRHYMET
The AGRHYMET Regional Center is a specialised institution in West-Africa, created and mandated by thirteen member states to provide operational information for decision making in the area of food security early warning and disaster risk management in the Sahelian and West-African region. After more than 40 years of existence, AGRHYMETâs scope of activities covers the whole seventeen West Africa and Sahel countries, thanks to several initiatives it has been implementing on behalf of the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) on food security and environmental issues, including climate change. The AGRHYMET system was formally designated a Public International Organization in accordance with the requirements of ADS 308 by USAID.Â
Bernard Minoungou
Hydrological Modelling Assistant
Dr Charlène Olayèmi Ursula Gaba
PDRA in Hydrological modelling and Hydro-informatics
Dr.-Ing. Agossou Gadedjisso-Tossou
Postdoctoral Fellow in Crop modelling on BRECcIA project at AGRHYMET
He is an agronomist with a Ph.D. in integrated soil and water management, focusing on assessing crop yield response to water in West Africa. He is an expert in crop modeling (with previous experience on AquaCrop) and soil-water-crop interaction processes. He has also expertise in assessing climate changeâs impact on agriculture production. I also have experience in using the WEAP (“Water Evaluation And Planning” system) model for Water, Energy, Food, and Ecosystems (WEFE) nexus assessment in the Niger river basin in West Africa. His research interest is assessing climatic risks and crop modeling for sustainable food and water security in West Africa. He is proficient in R and Python for climate data analysis and has basic Matlab knowledge. Within the BRECcIA project, at AGRHYMET his role was to use AquaCrop to:
â Assess Spatio-temporal variability of maize, sorghum, and millet yield in the Sirba basin, West Africa (seasonal-, short- and long-term projection);
â Understand and map the yield gap in West Africa;
â Map crop suitability across the West Africa region given landscape and climate factors.
â Couple AquaCrop model with hydrological models used in BRECcIA such as VIC and Hydroblocks.
SADC / Waternet
Building capacity for water resources management in southern Africa. WaterNet is a regional network of university departments and research and training institutes specialising in water. The network aims to build regional institutional and human capacity in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) through training, education, research and outreach by harnessing the complementary strengths of member institutions in the region and elsewhere. WaterNet member institutions have expertise in various aspects of water resources management and are based in Southern and East Africa.
WaterNet Executive Manager. Â BRECcIA Co-Investigator
Postdoctoral Fellow
Catherine Tlotlo Kerapetse
Research Officer
Dr. Goden Mabaya
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Dr. Goden Mabaya is the Post-Doctoral Fellow for the GCRF-BRECCIA project implemented by WaterNet. His role is to provide academic, scientific and technical support to the WaterNet activities under the GCRF BRECCIA project through implementation of designated WaterNet activities with a strong focus on policy engagement. Goden has particular research interest in sustainable agricultural water management and integrated land and water resources management, as well as climate change adaptation and proofing in agriculture. In the recent past he collaborated with Kyoto University to develop agricultural water management optimisation approaches that protect rural water resources from agrochemical pollution and from depletion caused by intensive agriculture systems and exacerbated by climate change induced droughts at minimum cost on agricultural productivity. Prior, he worked with UNDP, Meta Meta Research and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education to develop optimal approaches for coping with on-field water management uncertainties in spate irrigation schemes in Sudan.
Impact Champions
IIED
 Principal Researcher
Morgan Williams
Senior Coordinator
Morgan Williams is a project manager and team coordinator with 11 years’ experience of working with globally diverse project teams on high-profile, large-scale and long-term climate change and international development programmes. Morgan is a Senior Coordinator in IIEDâs Building climate resilience, productivity and equity in the drylands team which aims to help local and national governments make their development planning for drylands more resilient to climate change, and advocate at the global level for policies and laws that support climate adaptive management. She oversees a portfolio of projects and is responsible for budget and contract management, financial forecasting and reporting, monitoring output delivery, proposal budgeting, and relationship-building with partners and donors.
Claire Bedelian
Researcher
Claire is an independent researcher periodically contracted by IIED as a consultant. Her work centres on building resilience and productivity in the drylands of East Africa. She has worked with pastoralist communities in East Africa for the last 15 years. Her current research focuses on drylands water governance, working closely with county governments in Kenya to inform policy and planning. Before working at IIED, she worked with ODI on the Pathways to Resilience in Semi-Arid Areas (PRISE) project, and at University College London as a Research Associate in Anthropology.
David Pertaub
Research Associate
David Pertaub works in the Climate Change Group at IIED, where he is involved in ongoing research into Adaption and Resilience in the Drylands, Gender and Climate Change and Devolved Climate Finance.
David has a background in anthropology with a research focus on pastoralism and the drylands (East Africa), water governance, the impacts of large scale development projects (dams), and indigenous conceptions of prosperity and poverty. He previously worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at University College London on an ESCR-DFID funded project called SIDERA â âShifting (In)equality Dynamics from Research to Applicationâ (2018-2019). He explored recent social and environmental change in a remote part of southwest Ethiopia â the lower Omo valley â with a particular focus on the downstream impact of a mega-dam (the Gibe III) on vulnerable and marginalised agro-pastoralist communities living along the river Omo.
He holds a Masters in Anthropology, Development and the Environment from University College London (2016).
LEAD
LEAD was conceived as a programme focused on strengthening the capacities of a new cadre of leaders at the workplace empowered with knowledge of sustainable development and leadership skills including vision development.
Sosten Chiotha
Regional Director
Patrick Likongwe
Programme Officer â Research and Training
Sphiwe 'Phiwe' Nyalugwe
Project Officer
Sphiwe graduated from the University of Malawi with a Bachelor of science in Environmental Science in 2014. Since then she has worked with different organisations and in different positions. For instance, for over three years she worked as a lecturer in environmental management and organic farming in different higher learning institutions, including Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources and ShareWord University from 2015 to 2018. She has also worked as an Environmental Officer and later as a District Coordinator at Emmanuel International from 2018 to 2019.
