Associate Professor, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Lund University My research concerns how chemicals in the environment affect our health. These exposures can be unintentional (e.g., contaminated drinking water) or intentional (e.g., tattoos). When our lifestyle changes, it is important to clarify the consequences for our health. The popularity of tattoos has skyrocketed during the last decades, and studies have shown that there are plausible physiological mechanisms through which the pigments in tattoo ink may act as risk factors for disease. Yes, there is extremely little knowledge about the long-term health effects. I want to change that!
Professor of Ecology, University of the Sunshine Coast Professor Catherine Yule was formally the Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) for the Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering. Prior to coming to UniSC, Professor Yule lived and worked in SE Asia on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea, Indonesian Borneo and Malaysia for over thirty years. Her multidisciplinary research focuses on the ecology of rivers, lakes and swamps, particularly subtropical and tropical peat swamps, extreme and endangered environments of global significance due to their vast carbon sequestration. Her pioneering research on tropical ecosystem functioning using microbial ecology, metagenomics and phytochemistry has provided new insights and overturned misconceptions, with important implications for conservation management and climate change mitigation. Professor Yule also investigates other issues of global importance such as water pollution, and bioprospecting for novel bioactive compounds to combat antimicrobial resistance. She and her research team have discovered 18 new species of aquatic microbes and insects, including three novel peat swamp bacteria that exhibit antimicrobial activity against significant human pathogens.
Senior Fellow in Forest Governance and Leader of Ecosystems Governance Group, University of Oxford Profile Constance McDermott chairs the ECI's Ecosystems Governance Group (formerly the Forest Governance Group). Her research, described in detail on the Ecosystem Governance pages, addresses the linkages among diverse local, regional and global priorities for sustainable forest management. It examines both "new" and "old" institutions of forest governance, from market-based initiatives such as forest and carbon certification to sovereign state-based and traditional community-based approaches, to better understand how dynamics of trust and power shape environmental and social policies and facilitate or inhibit desired outcomes. Her methods range from locally focused case studies to large-scale comparative research examining cross-institutional and cross-boundary interactions. McDermott's work at ECI and the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests includes an emphasis on the integration of forest governance into the global climate regime. Recent research directions include the examination of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) initiatives, and the role of both pre-existing and new forest institutions for addressing REDD-related environmental and social mandates. Before beginning at Oxford in April 2009, McDermott worked for five years at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies where she served as Associate Research Scientist and Program Director of the Program on Forest Policy and Governance. She has conducted research and applied work in multi-stakeholder processes, forest and green building certification, intergovernmental forest-related governance, and international development in North and Central America, South Asia, and globally. Research Interests Within the theme of comparative governmental and inter-governmental policy, McDermott addresses the effects of market globalization on domestic forest policy, and the conflicts and synergies between trade and conservation oriented objectives within inter-governmental processes. For example, McDermott is lead author of the book, Global Environmental Forest Policy, together with co-authors Professors Benjamin Cashore (Yale University) and Peter Kanowski (Australian National University). The book compares environmental forest policies in twenty countries worldwide, and serves as a launching point for research on the role of government regulation in addressing REDD-related climate objectives. McDermott's work on trade-based initiatives includes the study of the impacts of wood products trade with the US and China on forests of the Amazon, Borneo, Chile, Congo, Mekong, and Russian Far East. Outputs from this work include a framework for establishing a "results-based" approach to prioritize the engagement of producers and traders in wood product sourcing initiatives. The certification of forests and forest products, and related initiatives (for example, green building, forest carbon certification) are another focal point as new forms of non-state governance designed to balance stakeholder interests both "vertically" (i.e. from the local to global level) and "horizontally" (i.e. across diverse interest groups). McDermott's research in this area includes the study of trust and distrust among stakeholders in shaping certification standards and uptake. Outputs include the development of policy tools for evaluating the use of certified wood in green building.
Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand Dr Caitlin Blaser Mapitsa’s research interests focus firstly on transboundary governance, of both land and people. She is interested in understanding what drives change in complex social and ecological systems, and which tools can best help us understand these changes. The second focus is on building contextually relevant evaluation approaches, and how evaluation can be a tool to align institutional practice with values systems and developmental objectives. She holds a PhD in migration and displacement from the University of the Witwatersrand’s African Centre for Migration and Society. She received an MA from the same institution, a BA from Wellesley college in international relations and French, and a postgraduate diploma from the University of Stellenbosch in monitoring and evaluation. She is also the research director at the School of Governance. She has worked as an evaluator in civil society, with Resilient Waters evaluating efforts to foster climate resilience in the Okavango and Limpopo river basins, as well as establishing learning systems with the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. She also worked with the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results, supporting efforts to strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems within public sector institutions across the region through peer learning.
Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations, University of Notre Dame Corey Angst conducts research on the transformational effect of IT, societal impacts of technology usage, and how (or if) IT creates value. Much of his existing work is set in the U.S. healthcare context, where he has investigated the diffusion and use of disruptive healthcare innovations and the relationship to patient satisfaction, privacy and security of medical information, financial performance of hospitals, and quality of care. His recent work is examining ethical questions related to the informed consent process used in the healthcare industry. He is also interested in ethical questions associated with the design, deployment, use and societal impacts of artificial intelligence.
Assistant Professor of Complex Adaptive Systems, Arizona State University Cole Mathis is an assistant professor in the School of Complex Adaptive Systems and in the Biodesign Center for Biocomputation, Security and Society. He is a physicist and astrobiologist who studies the origin and nature of life on Earth as well as the possibility of life beyond our planet. The focus of his research is connecting theoretical concepts with experiments and empirical validation, with the goal of helping create de novo life forms in the lab.
