Contributors

Simon Ho

Professor of Molecular Evolution, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney

Professor of Molecular Evolution, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney As a computational evolutionary biologist, my research interests include molecular clocks, evolutionary rates, and phylogenetic methods.

Saheed Aderinto

Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies, Florida International University

Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies, Florida International University Professor Saheed Aderinto, a filmmaker and the founding president of the Lagos Studies Association, is the author of Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria (Ohio University Press/New African Histories Series, 2022), Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order (Indiana University Press, 2018), and When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900-1958 (University of Illinois Press, 2015), which won the 2016 Nigerian Studies Association's Book Award Prize for the “most important scholarly book/work on Nigeria published in the English language." His current book project, Fuji: An African Popular Culture, is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. The first episode of his debut documentary film, The Fuji Documentary, premiered in February 2024. In 2023, he won the $300,000 Dan David Prize—the largest history prize in the world—in recognition of his “outstanding scholarship that illuminates the past and seeks to anchor public discourse in a deeper understanding of history.”

Sonto Madonsela

PhD student, Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand

PhD student, Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand I am a third-year PhD student in psychology at Wits University and a research assistant at the Health Communication Research Unit. My PhD research focuses on adolescent mental health. My PhD topic, ‘Mhealth services for adolescent mental health: a focus on Soweto’, looks at how technology can be leveraged to provide mental health services to adolescents. My research interests are in health communication, mental health and migration. Before starting my PhD, I worked as a research assistant and sessional lecturer in the School of Human and Community Development at Wits University. I have been involved in collaborative multidisciplinary projects, including research on African migration and health communication in diverse contexts.

Sasha Moodie

Research Officer, Curtin University

Research Officer, Curtin University I graduated from the Master of Public Health at the University of Melbourne in 2023. During my studies, I developed an interest in qualitative research methods and community-based approaches to public health responses and research. Since graduating, I have been working at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health and the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University in Indigenous health research. I also have experience working in sexual and reproductive healthcare and Victorian Government public health programs.

Steven Mathetsa

Senior Lecturer at the African Energy Leadership Centre, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand

Senior Lecturer at the African Energy Leadership Centre, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand Dr Steven Mathetsa is a senior lecturer at the African Energy Leadership Centre, Wits Business School. He is a professionally registered scientist with over 18 years’ experience in the fields of sustainable development, environmental management, climate change, water, and energy resources management. Prior to joining the AELC, he worked for private and public entities such as Eskom, Transnet and Anglo Coal. Dr Mathetsa has a BSc in natural and environmental sciences (UJ), BSc Honours and MSc in environmental management (UNISA), Postgraduate Diploma in energy leadership and PhD in environmental studies (Wits University). His research interest lies within the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus within the discourse of climate change and how the supply of these key resources can be sustained through formulation of integrated policies and systems thinking approaches.

Sherif El-Tawil

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan Sherif El-Tawil is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He graduated with honors from Cairo University in 1989 with a BS in Civil Engineering and received a MS in Structural Engineering in 1991, also from Cairo University. In 1996, he received a PhD degree in Civil Engineering from Cornell University and subsequently joined the faculty of the University of Central Florida. He moved to the University of Michigan in 2002, where he has since been. He also served as Visiting Professor at the University of Rennes, France, in 2008 and the University of California, Irvine. His graduate students and postdocs have all gone into influential positions in academia, industry and government around the world. Prof. El-Tawil's general research interest lies in computational modeling, analysis, and testing of structural materials and systems. He is especially interested in how buildings and bridges behave under the extreme loading conditions generated by manmade and natural hazards such as seismic excitation, collision by heavy objects, and blast. The focus of his research effort is to investigate how to utilize new materials, concepts and technologies to create innovative structural systems that mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects of extreme loading. Much of his research is directed towards the computational and theoretical aspects of structural engineering, with particular emphasis on computational simulation, constitutive modeling, multiscale techniques, macro-plasticity formulations, nonlinear solution strategies and visualization methods. He has published over 250 technical papers and reports, including 90 refereed journal papers in major publication venues. He is also lead author of a recently released ASCE guide for seismic design of hybrid steel-concrete coupled wall systems. Prof. El-Tawil also has a strong and long-sustained interest in multi-disciplinary research. He has conducted research in human decision making and social interactions during extreme events and the use of agent based models for egress simulations. He is also interested in visualization and has developed new techniques for applying virtual reality in the field of finite element simulations and the use of augmented reality for rapid assessment of infrastructure damage in the wake of disasters. His interest also extends to the development of new high performance materials, such as ultrahigh performance concretes and high performance asphaltic materials. A Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Prof. El-Tawil is Editor-in-Chief for the Society's Journal of Structural Engineering. He was former chair of the Society's Technical Administrative Committee on Metals and is former chair of the committee on Composite Steel-Concrete Construction. He is a member of the ASCE Blast, Methods of Analysis and Seismic Effects committees. He is a holder of two patents and has served as consultant to major companies and to agencies such as the Florida Department of Transportation, Louisiana Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Prof. El-Tawil's teaching, service and research efforts have been recognized through numerous national and international awards. Most notably, he is recipient of the Korean Concrete Institute's Paper of the Year Award and ASCE's State-of-the-Art Award, Huber Research Prize, Moisseiff Award (twice), Wellington Prize, Torrens Award, and Norman Medal.