Researcher , University of Cape Town Rafeeq Jaffer is a SAP Functional Analyst and a Researcher in the Department of Information Systems (IS) at the University of Cape Town. He completed his Honours in Information Systems at the University of Cape Town where he got to research a topic that he was very passionate about. His research focus is on the use of Information Systems in education specifically in underdeveloped communities. The aim is to identify pertinent technological challenges faced in education when integrating technology into the curriculum. To also offer solutions that can address these challenges and promote quality education for all students. Ultimately, to drive social change and national development.
Research Associate, Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town Rowan’s research interests lie in the fields of behavioural ecology and conservation, specifically understanding the evolutionary and ecological drivers of behaviour, and their implications for the persistence of populations. Rowan also has a strong focus in understanding the drivers and implications of trade in wildlife and the design of effective interventions to address associated harms. As Director of the World Parrot Trust’s Africa Conservation Programme he has spearheaded multiple research and conservation initiatives aimed at protecting vulnerable populations of some of the world's most threatened bird species, dismantling illicit trade networks and supporting evidence-based policy in both the private and public sectors.
Professor of Statistics and Data Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington I began my research career as an astronomer, and graduated with a PhD in Astronomy in 1991. After four years of postdoctoral research I moved into statistics - first in epidemiology, then working in official statistics and survey design, and in recent times working on a variety of applied statistics problems, I collected an MSc in Statistics and Operations Research along the way. I am a member of the Centre of Research Excellence "Te Punaha Matatini", funded by the Tertiary Education Commission.
Professor of Molecular Biophysics, King's College London Professor Rivka Isaacson is Professor of Molecular Biophysics in the Department of Chemistry, King’s College London. Rivka obtained a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester in 1997, followed by a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2001, under the supervision of Professor Sir Alan Fersht, FRS. She carried out post-doctoral research at Harvard Medical School with Professor Pamela Silver, and then at Imperial College London with Professor Steve Matthews. Subsequently, she worked at the Imperial College Drug Discovery Centre before starting her own research group in 2009 funded by an MRC New Investigator Research Grant. Rivka is passionate about radical interdisciplinarity, conducting many projects across the arts-sciences interface, including an ongoing multimedia collaboration with London Fine Art Studios called Viewing the Invisible and a longstanding relationship with the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at Chichester University around science and literature. Rivka currently serves on the UKRI Physics of Life steering group and the executive committee for the national Collaborative Computing Project for NMR. She was the 2021 winner of the Judith Howard prize from the Biophysical Sciences Institute at Durham University and the 2024 winner of the British Biophysical Society Elspeth Garman prize.
Professor, School of Science, Engineering & Environment, University of Salford My work explores the strategies adopted by infectious agents, at the individual and population level, to persist in nature, in particular those microorganisms that are arthropod transmitted. These efforts have centred on organisms of public health and veterinary importance, including the tick-transmitted Borrelia and Anaplasma species, and flea and louse-transmitted members of the bacterial genus Bartonella. Recent/ongoing projects include examination of the adaptation of A. phagocytophilum and B. burgdorferi strains to specific transmission pathways within natural multi-host, multi-vector system, quantification of genome-wide diversity within Bartonella species, and exploration of the molecular basis of arthropod exploitation by Bartonella species. I also have a slow-burning interest in the role of amoeba and other free-living protists as environmental hosts for pathogens. I also like to trawl the blood-steam of animals from near and distant corners of the planet in search of new haemoparasitic bacteria and protozoa; please get in touch if you can help out! I have been lucky enough to be part of a long-standing collaborative team, including scientists at the Universities of Aberdeen, Liverpool and Nottingham, interested in infectious disease ecology and using a model system of wild field vole (Microtus agrestis) populations to explore the influence of parasites on host population dynamics and host susceptibility to co-infectors, and the strategies adopted by hosts to counter parasitism
Lecturer, School of Aviation and Security, Buckinghamshire New University Renan de Oliveira is affiliated with Buckinghamshire New University, where he works in the School of Aviation and Security. His research has been involved in areas like media discourse analysis, with a focus on social issues such as sexual harassment in industries like airlines, hotels, and spas. This multidisciplinary approach highlights his interest in safety, security, and social challenges within aviation and related sectors.
