External Participants

 

 

Africa

Name Institution Key words Short description

Rebecca Garland

University of Pretoria, South Africa air quality, climate change, and science-policy linkages https://www.up.ac.za/geography-geoinformatics-and-meteorology/article/3043312/rebecca-garland
Babatunde J. Abiodun University of Cape Town, South Africa climate model developments and applications My research interests lies in climate model development and application for regional climate studies with a focus on Africa. This includes studying climate variability and change, weather and climate extremes, land-atmosphere interaction, and solar radiation management.  https://science.uct.ac.za/department-egs/staff-academic-staff/assoc-prof-babatunde-j-abiodun
Christopher Lennard  University of Cape Town, South Africa Climate modelling; Climate information; Renewable energy; Cloud computing I am interested in the impacts of regional climate variability and change in Africa. Working on projects including modelling for wind energy resource assessment, co-production of scale-relevant, actionable climate information, cloud computing, climate intervention and disease modelling.   https://www.csag.uct.ac.za/author/clennard/
Isaac Akinwumi  Covenant University, Nigeria Environment, Education, training and outreach 1. Research on Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH), Geoenvironment, Air quality, Flooding, Coastal erosion and Waste management; and 2.  Education, training and Outreach. https://staff.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/members/akinwumi-isaac-ibukun/
Oye Ideki Nigeria Maritime University Climatology, extreme climate events, climate change, prediction, modelling , hydrology, West Africa  
Kassahun Ture Addis Ababa University (AAU), Ethiopia Air Pollution, Climate Change Adaptation and mitigation http://www.aau.edu.et/cns/center-for-environmental-science/kassahun-ture/
Tibebu Assefa C40 Air Quality and Health https://www.c40.org/
Margaret Gitau University of Nairobi, Kenya PM2.5 concentration, toxic heavy metals analysis, source apportionment, SDGs I am analysing exposure levels to PM2.5 affecting the people operating within the city of Nairobi. The instruments I am using are portable cyclone samplers, so generally I am doing personal exposure levels. Source apportionment is also part of my objectives.
Jmv Niyitegeka MeteoRwanda, Rwanda weather, climate services senior Meteorologist. Experience in weather, climate services their application in agriculture, environmental management, energy, health, water and other fields.
Prosper Ayabagabo MeteoRwanda, Rwanda WRF, radar and satellite, weather/climate services, and application Numerical weather prediction, radar data interpretation and nowcasting, forecast of weather and climate extremes
Mthetho Sovara  Centre for High-Performance Computing, South Africa HPC, ocean-atmosphere system, ML, outreach investigating the dynamic shifts within the ocean-atmosphere system, spanning historical, current, and future conditions. Applying ML  for enhancing numerical weather prediction and addressing climate change challenges. involved in multiple high-performance computing (HPC) initiatives aimed at supporting postgraduate students from universities in Southern Africa.
Robert Maisha  South African Weather Service numerical weather prediction, Data Assimilation My interest is numerical weather prediction and Data Assimilation and Model Development. I have experience in WRF and also less experience in WRFDA. I also apply the Unified Model and its DA component in my line of work. For research and model development we run the Australian CCAM model in NWP, Climate Projections and Urban Climate Modelling.
Alexandre Fumo Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), Mozambique climate change adaptation biologist that works in practical fields of conservation and landscape approaches to land management, where cultural, political, economic, among many other non-biophysical factors influence decision making.
Elizabeth Majani Sunguti KU Leuven and VUB in Belgium/ JOOUST in Kenya Regional climate modelling, convective permitting climate modelling, climate extremes Interested in applying the regional climate model- COSMO-CLM in evaluating climate extremes in the Lake Victoria Basin, Africa.
Roelof Burger Unit of Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University, South Africa Climate change, air quality, earth observation  I am interested in how humans impact atmospheric processes. I use observations (like Weather Radar), and some modelling to do this. I hope to contribute to improving climate predictions and to informed environmental strategies.
Sarah Roffe Agricultural Research Council, South Africa Regional Climate Modelling, Climate change and variability, Extreme weather events, Agriculture, Climate Services My work is focused over southern Africa considering regional climate change and variability in an agricultural context, and I use the WRF model for many applications on this topic.
Mukovhe Singo Agricultural Research Council, South Africa Regional Climate Modelling, Climate change and variability, Extreme weather events, Wildfires I study regional climate change and variability over southern Africa, and I use the WRF model for many applications on this topic.

 

Europe

Name Institution Key words Short description
Marleen Dekker Leiden University, Netherlands Inclusive development; Environmental justice; Socio-economic inequalities; Interdisciplinary academic collaboration across geographies https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/marleen-dekker#tab-1
Pepijn Veefkind KNMI, Netherlands satellite https://www.knmi.nl/over-het-knmi/onze-mensen/pepijn-veefkind
Henk Eskes KNMI, Netherlands satellite https://www.henkeskes.nl/
Deborah Stein KNMI, Netherlands satellite https://www.knmi.nl/over-het-knmi/onze-mensen/deborah-c-stein-zweers
Camille Mouchel-Vallon Laboratoire d'Aérologie, CNRS, France air quality, modeling, organic chemistry, rain composition Combining multiscale modeling, INDAAF network wet deposition measurements and air quality measurements to improve our understanding of rain composition and its impacts on natural and cultivated ecosystems.   https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Camille-Mouchel-Vallon
Zhonghua Zheng The University of Manchester, United Kingdom aerosols; air quality; climate; environment; data science; computing

My work focuses on developing process-based and data-driven models to understanding atmospheric aerosols, air quality, and climate change.      

https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/zhonghua.zheng

Francis Pope University of Birmingham Air pollution, climate change, sustainable cities Francis runs the ‘A Systems Approach to Air Pollution (ASAP)’ projects, which has worked in East Africa and West Africa, in addition to other global cities.  The ASAP project is an umbrella project that aims to enhance local decision-making abilities to improve urban air quality, reduce the effects of air pollution upon human health, and allow for sustainable development to proceed without further deterioration in air quality.  https://www.francispope.com/projects-1
Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy heavy rainfall, high resolution atmospheric models, remote sensing I'm interested in extreme precipitation events and their link with the surface. I've run sensitivity tests with the WRF model to evaluate the dependence of heavy rainfalls on the PBL and the microphysical schemes.
Fabien Desbiolles University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy high resolution atmospheric and ocean models, coupled simulations, clouds and rainfall I am interested in the lower-atmosphere response to fine-scale ocean structures, notably clouds and rainfall responses both locally and remotely.
Nicole van Lipzig KU leuven, Belgium regional climate modelling, convection-permitting climate modelling, extreme events CORDEX flagship pilot study ELVIC - Climate Extremes in the Lake Viktoria Basin.  Interested in co-developing, evaluating, and applying the regional climate model COSMO-CLM across diverse global regions including Africa.
Nick van de Giesen Delft University of Technology, Netherlands In situ observations, remote sensing Over thirty years of field experience in different African countries in the field of water, weather, and climate. Several large innovation projects where services are built to provide actionable information in the fields of flood early warning systems, agricultural insurance, and reservoir management
Frank Annor Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO) Weather and hydro station, innovation TAHMO runs a network of 600+ weather stations in 20 African countries in close cooperation with national government agencies. About 25 engineers keep the network running on the ground while an advance IT system allows data distribution through portal and API.      www.tahmo.org
Eloise Marais University College London, UK Atmospheric Chemistry, air quality influence of humans on air quality, atmospheric chemistry, ecosystems and human health,  https://www.ucl.ac.uk/geography/eloise-marais
Luis Durán Montejano Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain weather, climate weather and climate research from wave activity to ENSO and other tropical variability at various spatial scales. have collaborations with African colleagues from Senegal for many years
María Belén Rodríguez de Fonseca Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain weather, climate weather and climate research from wave activity to ENSO and other tropical variability at various spatial scales. have collaborations with African colleagues from Senegal for many years
Deborah Stein Zweers KNMI, Netherlands    
Agnieszka Kazimierczuk Leiden University, Netherlands  Inclusive development; just low-carbon transition; interdisciplinarity; evidence-based policy-making Her research interests and expertise are on the use of satellite air quality data to inform climate policies in Africa, just low-carbon transition in Africa, (international) private sector development in Africa and decent youth employment. She has an ample experience in working on interdisciplinary (research) projects, as well as in knowledge brokering between academia and policy.
Mohamed Hamitouche University School for Advanced Studies (IUSS) Pavia, Italy water availability, scarcity, and management strategies I am passionate about studying hydrological extremes such as floods and droughts. My interests also extend to agricultural-related topics.

 

North America

Name Labs Key words Short description
Christine Wiedinmyer  CIRES fire; emissions; air quality https://cires.colorado.edu/administration/christine-wiedinmyer
Charles Ichoku UMBC climate; weather https://cahss.umbc.edu/news/post/130589/
Ave Arellano University of Arizona data assimilation, air quality and aerosols, satellite remote sensing interested in understanding drivers of atmospheric pollution and their interactions in Africa using observational and modeling datasets (IGAC/AMIGO, UArizona-UM6P).   https://arellano.faculty.arizona.edu/
Brad Pierce WISC   https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/staff/brad-pierce/
Solomon Bililign NCAT aerosols; air quality professor in the Physics Department at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&T). His current research is focused on laboratory studies of optical and physiochemical properties of aerosols derived from African biomass fuels and field studies to collect filter samples of ambient pollutants for chemical analysis and measurement of BC and PM2.5 to understand and their impact on climate and health in Africa. https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1021253996
Priyanka deSouza University of Colorado Denver air quality; surface-measurements; satellite remote sensing; health effects My interests involve using low-cost sensors and satellite data to fill in air quality data gaps. I am also interested in better characterizing the health impacts of air pollution on the African continent. https://architectureandplanning.ucdenver.edu/our-people/phdfaculty/deSouza-Priyanka-EXTQTN1F7
Daile Zhang University of Maryland Lightning evaluating and assessing lightning data from different lightning locating systems, including both ground-based and satellite-based networks. She serves on the Board of Directors of the African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network.  https://essic.umd.edu/joom2/index.php/faculty-and-staff?layout=user&user_id=1175
Mary Ann Cooper University of Cincinnati lightning injuries and lightning injury prevention helped design training and accreditation standards in emergency medicine and served on the governing boards of several national EM organizations; Managing Director of the African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network. https://ACLENet.org
Ronald Holle ACLENet Lightning; education Volunteer with African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network (ACLENet), mainly in
Uganda, for education about the lightning threat and advocating for protecting buildings from lightning,
especially schools. https://aclenet.org/
Yan Jiang UCSD climate variability, water cycle, wildfire, remote sensing, food security (1) Research on rainfall seasonality over the Congo rainforest; (2) Research on wildfire variations in Central Africa; (3) Research on water sources for global and regional food production under climate and land use changes.      https://yjiangc.github.io/
Xinyue Wang CU Boulder stratosphere Interested in (1) Long-range transport of trace gases to or out of Africa; (2) Understanding the role of stratosphere in long-range transport predictability.  
Luke Parsons The Nature Conservancy paleoclimate; climate dynamics; drought climate change impacts on heat exposure and human health and well-being, what various future emissions pathways mean for air pollution exposure and health, tropical deforestation impacts on heat exposure, and  wildfire smoke modeling
Bok Haeng Baek George Mason University Air quality and emissions modeling; modeling applications to support environmental policy https://science.gmu.edu/directory/bh-baek
Jason Surratt University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Atmospheric chemistry, formation of SOA https://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/jason-d-surratt-phd/
Rong Fu UCLA Water, atmosphere, vegetation, and extremes https://dept.atmos.ucla.edu/rongfu
Siyu Zhao UCLA Atmospheric dynamics, weather extremes, seasonal forecast, and climate variability My work focuses on understanding the physical and dynamic mechanisms of the tropical and midlatitude weather and climate processes. For Africa, I am interested in understanding the mesoscale convective systems over the Congo Basin using the MPAS model.  
Danqiong Dai University of Saskatchewan groundwater pumping, human management activities, Anthropocene, boreal forest, permafrost thawing, wetland My research focused on 1) improving the representation of human management activities in the land surface model; 2) investigating human management activity’s impacts on the terrestrial water cycle and regional climate in the Anthropocene; 3) modelling boreal forest wetland variation under climate change 
Ioannis Binietoglou Clean Air Task Force (CATF) methane  
Zhen Qu North Carolina State University methane, wetland, ENSO My work interest is to understand natural greenhouse gas emissions in Africa, particularly wetland methane emissions and its interactions with ENSO and climate change. I have been quantifying emissions using Bayesian inference, data assimilation, machine learning, chemical transport model, and satellite remote sensing. 
Akintomide Afolayan Akinsanola  University of Illinois Chicago/Argonne National Laboratory  Regional climate modelling, Monsoon, Extreme events, Climate Variability and change I utilize varieties of climate models and observations to better understand climate dynamics, especially processes that impact tropical and mid-latitude precipitation. 
Abdulamid Fakoya University of Oklahoma smoke aerosols, wildfires, in-situ observation, remote sensing, WRF Utilizing remote sensing, airborne measurements and model output to enhance knowledge of how wildfires' radiative properties evolve during transport, and to assess their impact on solar energy balance and regional climate.
Farzaneh Taksibi the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Multiphase Chemistry, Secondary Organic Aerosol (SOA), Aerosol Phase State, Isoprene Emissions, Air Quality Modeling Research objectives involve developing and evaluating semi-explicit gas-phase and multiphase chemical mechanisms for isoprene-derived SOA, implementing them in AQMs, and assessing their performance.
Yangyang Xu Texas A&M University     climate modeling, climate adaptation and resilience, chemistry-climate interaction     I am interested in applying global and regional models to understand hydroclimate extremes in Africa. The end goal is to enhance the regional capacity to deal with climate risks in collaboration with local stakeholders. The climate interaction with the natural chemical cycle (fire, forest, wetland) is also of interest. https://yangyangxu.weebly.com/research.html 
Denis Macharia Muthike CU Boulder Extreme events, climate, hydrology, remote sensing, data science, stakeholder engagement interdisciplinary fields in climate adaptation including climatology, extreme events, hydrology, earth observations, data science, and adaptation science;  experience primarily in eastern and southern Africa; current work includes research on flood and drought risks in Africa in support of adaptation interventions targeting rural communities; interest in modeling hydro-climatological processes to generate novel knowledge on the compound impacts of climate change, population growth, agricultural intensification, and watershed management practices on rural populations
Juan Sesmero Purdue University agriculture, sustainability I study the economics of irrigated agriculture in developing countries (Mexico and Ethiopia), how farmers adjust production practices to past weather patterns (Malawi), and how markets can be better organized to develop a sustainable supply chain of high-quality agricultural products (Uganda).
Ismaila Diallo San José State University Climate Dynamics; Land/atmosphere interaction; Climate Modeling; Extreme Climate Events; Climate Variability My research utilizes datasets from various sources to study climate variability and change on broad timescales, as well as to advance the understanding on the role of land-atmosphere biophysical interactions processes in the climate system, with a special emphasis on monsoon systems and the mechanisms involved. For Africa, I am interested in understanding processes that impact MCSs and extreme precipitation. 
Dan Westervelt Columbia University air quality, sensors, climate modeling, aerosols  Prof. Westervelt works at the intersection of atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and climate change. He leads collaborative work on air quality observations, modeling, and satellite retrievals in several African countries
Kimberly Slinski University of Maryland Hydrology, Satellite Data, Food Security, Earth System Modeling My research uses satellite remote sensing data and Earth system models to monitor and forecast water availability in food-insecure, data-sparse regions.
Meklit Berihun Melesse Washington State University reservoir management multiple reservoir management in the Nile Basin
Belay Demoz UMBC Observation and modeling aspects of weather and airquality His interests are in observation instrument networks for weather and climate, in particular upper air observations. He is also an adjunct professor at Howard University leading the WMO certified climate observation site at Beltsville, MD (https://www.gruan.org/). https://physics.umbc.edu/people/faculty/demoz/
Emmanuel Audu University of Nebraska-Lincoln Climate Modelling; Climate Variability and Change, Atmospheric Dynamics, Tropical Precipitation My research interest lies in utilizing earth system models and observations to investigate climate variability and change, aiming to enhance our understanding of atmospheric dynamics and the processes driving tropical precipitation.
Dorcas O Idowu Syracuse University Flooding, remote sensing, GIS, Early Flood Warning System Research on satellite and hydrologic model applications for operational flood risk management in West Africa. https://phenomresearch.com/
Tong Qiu Duke University biodiversity, Eco-climatology, remote sensing Our lab at Duke University is interested in the causes and consequences of biodiversity change in a changing environment. For this project, we are interested in evaluating the ecological outcomes from restoration projects in Africa and their feedback to the climate system. More details can be found at www.tongqiulab.com
Kelly Núñez Ocasio Texas A&M University African weather and climate; numerical weather prediction; tropical cyclone genesis My research focus is on understanding African easterly waves (AEW), mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), tropical cyclone genesis, and African weather and climate including monsoonal interactions with ITCZ and AEWs-MCS systems, using both observations and numerical weather prediction.  An urgent need in Africa, especially over regions where livelihood depends on crops, is to try to understand extreme events (MCSs, AEWs, etc.), their relation to the monsoon, and how they will change with the changing climate. I'm interested in leading research to help answer these questions as well as informing the resulting science to the African community (both general and scientific) through this project as well as communicating the potential impacts and threats to help them better prepare.   https://staff.ucar.edu/users/knocasio
Audrey Gaudel NOAA environmental justice, air quality, portable instruments and sensors, satellite and model evaluation https://csl.noaa.gov/staff/audrey.gaudel/

Asia

Hiroshi Tanimoto National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan Atmospheric Chemistry, Earth Observation Satellite, Air Quality and Climate Change Hiroshi Tanimoto is Deputy Director of Earth System Division at NIES, and serves as Research Director of Climate Change and Air Quality Research Program and Science and Application Lead of NIES GOSAT-GW Project, which will make global and target observations of CO2, CH4 and NO2 on the single satellite platform. He has been working in the field of global atmospheric chemistry, leading the development of techniques for measuring and modeling trace gases and aerosols of atmospheric importance, the observations of spatial and temporal variations using ground-based, ship, aircraft, and satellite platforms, and the simulation of transport and transformation processes.

 

Contact

Please direct questions/comments about this page to:

Wenfu Tang

ACOM Type
UCAR Africa Initiative