Honorary Research Fellow, Cardiff University I am an archaeologist specialising in the prehistory of Britain and Ireland. I trained as an archaeologist at Cardiff University, completing my PhD at the university, focusing on the rock art of the Neolithic passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth in Co. Meath, Ireland, and then broadening my research interests to include the subject of worldview; studying shamanism, totemism and animism. As part of my PhD in 2008, my research took me to South America, where I worked closely with the Shipibo tribe, the indigenous people along the Ucayali River in the Amazon rainforest in Peru. My rock art research took me to Namibia in 2017, when I worked with the archaeology department at the University of Namibia, Windhoek. I joined Cadw in 2011, the historic environment service for the Welsh Government, to work as a community archaeologist in the south Wales area. Currently, I oversee the public programmes for Cadw, across 130 sites in Wales. I co-direct a public archaeology project in the multi-period landscape around the important site of Bryn Celli Ddu Neolithic passage tomb, on the island of Anglesey.
Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine Feng Wang in an expert on Chinese demographics and professor of sociology at University of California, Irvine. His research interests: include comparative demographic, economic, and social processes; social inequality in state socialisms and contemporary Chinese society.
Directrice du Centre de recherche et documentation du Senegal (CRDS), Université Gaston Berger Ms. Fatima Fall NIANG has been a specialist in preventive conservation and manager of model cultural institutions at the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation du Sénégal, an institute of the Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis. She has worked there for 29 years (13 years at the museum and 16 years as the Center's director). From 2000-2001, she was a consultant for WAMP in the program entitled: "Identification, Classification, Preservation, Interpretation of Photographic Collections in Museums and Archives in West Africa" funded by the Getty Grant Program, USA. She was a member of the team that put together the file for the inscription of the Island of Saint-Louis on the World Heritage List, the inventory that followed and all the issues of conservation, safeguarding and promotion of cultural heritage and tourism in the northern zone. Since 2009, Mrs. NIANG is a member of the steering committee of the Tourism Development Program. Since 1999, she has been involved in university courses at EPA. Since 2011, she teaches in the Professional Master in Tourism in LSH; from 2008 to 2012, she coordinated the model for the opening of the MDP section of the UFR CRAC at the UGB; From 2011-2012, she was a member of the design team of the model: "management and conservation of heritage" developed by the UEMOA out of 22 courses planned in the area. In 2017, she was co-opted as a member of the International Scientific Committee of the Amadou Mahtar MBOW University, in Diamniadio. She is a UNESCO expert-referent for intangible heritage where she coordinated the registration file of the element "Ceebu jën" on the World Heritage List of Humanity, December 15, 2021. She is co-author of a book entitled: "Ceebu Jën, a Senegalese heritage" published on December 2, 2021. Mrs. NIANG is a member of ICOMOS and ICOM of which she has been the head of the national committee since 2017. She was decorated Knight in the Order of Academic Palms by France in March 2002 and in the National Order of Merit of Senegal in February 2020.
PhD Candidate, Mental Health, Sophiahemmet University I am a PhD student and licensed psychologist at Sophiahemmet University, focusing on risk factors of mental health problems among university students.
Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Antwerp Fergus O'Leary Simpson is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp’s Institute of Development Policy (IOB). His research looks at the intersection of environmental conservation, various forms of extraction and violent conflict in eastern DRC’s South Kivu Province. He obtained a PhD from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Hague, which is part of Erasmus University.
Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin Fernando Luiz Lara is a Brazilian architect with degrees from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (BArch, 1993) and the University of Michigan (PhD, 2001). Prof. Lara's interests revolve around Latin American 20th century architecture with emphasis on the dissemination of its values beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries. His PhD dissertation on this topic was expanded into a book: The Rise of Popular Modernist Architecture in Brazil, published in 2008 by the University Press of Florida. In his several articles Prof. Lara has discussed the modern and the contemporary Brazilian architecture, its meaning, context and social-economic insertion. His latest publications look at the modernist vocabulary and spatiality being appropriated by the humblest favela dwellers. A member of the Brazilian Institute of Architects and the Brazilian DOCOMOMO, Lara has also been active in his native country as a critic, researcher and educator. A licensed architect in Brazil, Lara has designed many structures, alone or in partnership with others. His current interest in the favelas has turned into opportunities to engage with public policy at the municipal level as well as collaborations with local firms designing public spaces in informal settlements. In 2005 he founded Studio Toró, a non-profit devoted to the challenges of water conservation and urban flooding in Latin America. At the University of Texas at Austin Fernando Lara teaches seminars on 20th century Latin American architecture and urbanism, as well as studios related to the continent's current urban challenges.
