Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nigeria Professor Val Ekechukwu was the former Director, Research & Innovation at the National Universities Commission (NUC). He was a member of the Governing Council at both the Air-force Institute of Technology, Kaduna and the National Mathematical Centre, Abuja. He has held numerous international fellowships and is currently undertaking research at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he has taught for over four decades.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research, Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise), University of the Arts London Prof David Mba is currently the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise at the University of the Arts London (UAL). David studied Aerospace Engineering (1st class honours) at the University of Hertfordshire and completed a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Cranfield University, for which he was awarded the Lord King Norton Gold medal for the most outstanding doctoral thesis. Professor Mba is a leading authority in machine condition monitoring and has contributed to the development and publication of international standards in the subject area. He is also a visiting Professor at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Professor Mba is passionate about education within Africa/Nigeria and has published numerous opinion articles in national media.
Research Professor, World Christianity and African Studies, DePaul University I was ordained a Catholic priest in my home country of Nigeria, and in addition to my native language, Igbo, I speak French, English and Italian. My educational background includes an MA in theology; an MA in educational leadership; an ecclesiastical licentiate in sacred theology (with a concentration in the Christological images in Luke-Acts and African theologies); and a PhD in theology from the University of St Michael’s College at the University of Toronto (with a concentration in African Christian history’s cross-cultural currents); and a second PhD from the University of South Africa in the sociology of education, specializing in equity and multicultural education in faith-based schooling. In addition to teaching at DePaul, I am also a visiting professor at Tangaza University College’s Institute of Social Ministry and Mission in Nairobi, and the founder of the Canadian Samaritans for Africa, a nonprofit that works directly with African women to help them alleviate poverty. I also am the editor of the African Christian Studies Series for Pickwick Publications, Wipf and Stock Publishers; a commentator on Africa, religion, and politics for Canada Television (CTV) and Al-Jazeera; a columnist for CNN African Voices, Catholic Register and Premium Times; and a blogger for Huffington Post’s World Affairs, Religion, and Black Voices sections. My areas of interest are cross-cultural studies, African intellectual and political history, African Christianity and the world Church, equity and diversity in faith-based education and ministry, religion and social transformation, and religion and violence. I coordinate CWCIT’s new African Catholicism Project, a network of established and emerging African Christian scholars to promote mentorship and diverse research in African Christianity and to make this scholarship more visible beyond Africa. Since 2017, my research has been centred on reform and renewal in the Church, especially following Pope Francis' call for a missionary conversion and the crisis of clerical sexual abuse. The fruit of my research is being developed in my forthcoming book: Rome and the Margins: Reform and the Renewal in the Catholic Church Beyond the West. Some of my recent works include: The Face of Africa: Looking Beyond the Shadows; Love, Joy and Sex: African Conversation on Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia and the Gospel of Family in a Divided World; A Poor and Merciful Church: The Illuminative Ecclesiology of Pope Francis; Church and Development in Africa.
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.
Adjunct Researcher, Karolinska Institutet After graduating from the study programme in psychology in 2011 with a MSc I worked as a clinical psychologist at an outpatient psychiatric care unit and as an adjunct lecturer at the Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet. I became a Licensed Psychologist in Sweden in 2012 and have continued doing part-time clinical work in different settings ever since. I finished my PhD at the Department of Psychology at Stockholm University in 2017 with a doctoral thesis on the negative effects of Internet-based cognitive behaviour therapy. After my dissertation I spent almost two years as a researcher at the Great Ormond Street Hospital Institute of Child Health at University College London. I completed a post doctoral position at the Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet in 2021, where I am presently an Adjunct Researcher, doctoral supervisor, and principal investigator for the implementation of patient-controlled admissions to inpatient care in Region Stockholm. Since 2021, I am an Associate Professor and Study Director at the Department of Psychology at Uppsala University, and since 2022 I am the Editor-in-Chief for the journal Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.
Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet I am an Associate Professor of epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet and a Professor of Care Science at Sophiahemmet University, Stockholm, Sweden. I perform large cohort studies and randomised controlled trials mainly about musculoskeletal and mental health.
