Todd Crane joined the Livestock Systems and Environment team at ILRI on   1 January, 2014. He will be working full-time on the CCAFS CRP. Todd joins ILRI following 6 years as an assistant professor in social sciences at Wageningen University, first at the Technology and Agrarian Development (TAD) group, then in the newly formed Knowledge, Technology and Innovation (KTI) group. Todd’s work centers on interdisciplinary approaches to climate change adaptation by farmers and herders and how those intersect with scientific research, policies and development practices. He is particularly interested in autonomous adaptation. Todd did his PhD in ecological anthropology at the University of Georgia (US). He conducted his thesis research in central Mali, analyzing farmers’ and herders’ land management knowledge and practices, as well as the politics between farmers and herders in landscape level rural development. He has subsequently conducted research on topics such asseasonalclimate forecasts as risk management tools, local institutions and climate adaptation in Ethiopia and Mali, socio-technical innovation in oil palm systems in Benin.

 Josephine Birungi joined BecA as Technology Manager in January 2014. She holds a BSc (Hons) (Zoology/Psychology) and MSc (Zoology) from Makerere University Kampala, Uganda. She was awarded a PhD in Molecular Genetics, Evolutionary Biology and Conservation genetics at Makerere University/University of Copenhagen, Denmark, with specific interest in population genetics and phylogenetics of wildlife populations. She conducted postdoctoral research work at Yale University School of Medicine, using genetic tools to understand the invasion biology of the dengue fever vector Aedes albopictus in the US, Brazil and Asia and population genetics of sandfly species of South America. She also volunteered as a taxonomist at the Yale Peabody museum.Given that more diseases kill people in Africa, and that molecular skills were limited in Africa, Josephine returned to Uganda and joined the Uganda Virus Research Institute-International AIDS Vaccine Initiative HIV vaccine trial unit. For 9 years, she worked as Senior Scientist, a role that involved the set up of a fully functional vaccine trial laboratory from structural design, to laboratory accreditation to becoming a model laboratory for Sub-Saharan Africa. This was the first laboratory in Africa to attain GCLP international accreditation. She was also involved in the development of a capacity building program for vaccine trial laboratories in selected African countries. During her tenure with the HIV unit she was hired as Principal Research Officer and later promoted to Senior Principal Research Officer at the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), a government institution under the Ministry of Health. Here she conducted research on the ecology, behavior and genetics of arboviral and malaria vectors, and projects on capacity building of vector biologists through training of graduate students and interns from Makerere University and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She is also honorary Senior Lecturer at Makerere University Kampala and has served as an External Supervisor to several University students for close to 10 years. Josephine’s responsibilities at BecA include laboratory management, research facilitation and research-related services, capacity building through strategic planning, acquisition, technical coordination, application and monitoring of new technologies within and outside the BecA-ILRI Hub and managing of the genomics and bioinformatics groups.

Catherine Pfeifer was appointed Spatial Analyst on 1 January 2014, based in Nairobi and will mainly work on spatial components of Livestock and Fish as well as Humid Tropic program. She is passionate about using geographical information systems (GIS) to combine both bio-physical and socio-economic data to create new maps that assist context specific decision making. Previously, she was based in Ethiopia and worked as post-doc for ILRI and IWMI on the Nile Basin Challenge program. She contributed to the development of “Nile-Goblet” an open-source easy to use GIS tool for targeting as well as the “Happy Strategies game”, a game that can be played with experts, stakeholders or rural communities to identify context specific agricultural solutions and their entry points within a landscape or a watershed. Catherine holds a Phd from Wageningen University for which she investigated the patterns of farm diversification in the Netherlands and their  contribution to the provision of ecosystem services. .Teaching both in an academic and non-academic contexts, has accompanied Catherine along her carrier. She is now pursuing a certificate of advance studies in adult education at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Northwestern Switzerland, hoping to apply these new competencies to spread broadly the correct use of GIS tools.                                                                 

Melkamu Bezabih  joined ILRI on 6 January, 2014 as a Postdoctoral scientist on livestock feeds, Addis Ababa. Previously, Melkamu worked as a lecturer and assistant professor of Animal Nutrition at Hawassa University, Ethiopia, during which he was involved in teaching, research and outreach activities. Melkamu holds an MSc degree in Animal Nutrition from Bonn University,  PhD degree in Ruminant Nutrition from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. His research interest lies in assessing and quantifying the nutrient intakes of grazing animals with the aid of markers, as well as evaluating the nutritional value of alternative conventional and nonconventional feeds and feeding options for smallholder farmers. During his postdoctoral tenure, Melkamu will be involved in the Ethiopian Livestock Feeds project aimed at increasing the availability and quality of livestock feeds for smallholder farmers in the Ethiopian highlands for a sustainable intensification of the livestock sector in the region. He primarily focuses on characterizing existing feed production systems, identifying feasible feed technology interventions in relation to local contexts, conducting action research with farmers and building the capacity of students involved in feed technology evaluations.

Edgar Twine joined ILRI on 15 January, 2014 as a Post Doctoral Fellow – Value Chain Economist with the Livelihoods, Gender, Impact and Innovation Program. From January 2008 to December 2013, Edgar worked as a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology at the University of Alberta. His work involved several sector-level analyses of the Canadian beef cattle industry. Prior to that, he worked as a socio-economist with the International Institute of Tropical agriculture (IITA) in Uganda, where he conducted several technology adoption and food security studies spanning six countries in East and Central Africa. In addition to his research experience, Edgar brings to ILRI experience in development work involving resource-constrained and marginalized agricultural households, having worked as a Program Assistant with Vredeseilanden East Africa in Uganda. He assisted in providing organizational strengthening and institutional development support to farmer organizations, and helped strengthen their linkages with research, extension and agricultural markets. Edgar holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Alberta,  MSc. in Agricultural Economics and  BSc. in Agriculture (Agricultural Economics major) both from Makerere University, and a Certificate in Environmental Economics and Policy from the University of Pretoria. His research interests are in the areas of marketing economics, production economics, agricultural trade and policy.

Franklin Simtowe was appointed Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Senior Scientist in the BecA ILRI Hub on 15 January, 2014. Franklin has over 15 years’ experience in of Policy research and advocacy in Southern, Eastern and Western Africa regions. Prior to joining ILRI, he worked for Alliance for Green revolution in Africa as a Policy Economist and CGIAR centers such as the Africa Rice Centre in West Africa and the International Crops Research Institute for the semi-Arid Tropic (ICRISAT) based in Nairobi. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Hohenhiem. He also specialized in Agricultural Economics for both his Master and Bachelor degrees that he obtained from the University of Malawi.

Amole Tunde Adegoke joined ILRI on 20 January, 2014 as a Postdoctoral Scientist, Livestock feeds, Ouagadougou. Tunde had his doctoral degree in Forage Production & Utilization, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta Nigeria. He has been working with the Institute for Food Security, Environmental Resource and Agricultural Research (IFSERAR) of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta Nigeria as a Pasture and Ruminant Feed Scientist for over 3 years. His research interest over the years has been on the integration of forage legumes with arable crop in a crop-livestock farming system to enhance herbage yield and quality as ruminants’ feed resources. And also, in the conservation of feed resources toward dry season in form hay, silage and fodder banks and utilization of crop-residues.

 John Goopy was appointed Scientist – Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases Emissions in the Livestock Systems and Environment department on 15 January, 2014. John has extensive experience in agricultural research, predominantly applied ruminant nutrition. He is a skilled academic and technical writer and communicator, with a substantial track record in undergraduate and post-graduate teaching, combined with considerable private-sector experience. He holds a PhD in Ruminant Nutrition (Enteric Methane mitigation) from the School of Rural Science, University of New England, Australia and a Bachelor degree in Applied Science (Animal Production)from the University of Queensland, Australia.

Nicholas Svitek joined the ILRI Vaccine Biosciences (ILVAC) team on 1 February, 2014 as a Cellular Immunologist after completing a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship, in the same group, on reverse vaccinology and the cellular immunity towards Theileria parva in cattle. Prior to this, Nicholas had been working at Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) in the Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) department as a research fellow in virology. Nicholas holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Montreal, a Master of Science degree in Microbiology and Immunology from that same university, and a PhD in Virology and Immunology from the University of Quebec where his research were conducted at the Institut Armand-Frappier (IAF), a member institute of the “Institut Pasteur International Network”. Nicholas brings to ILRI many years of experience studying viral infections and viral pathogenesis in animal models, more specifically on viruses member of the Reoviridae and Paramyxoviridae families. Nicholas’ research interests are in the immune responses towards vaccines and infectious pathogens, virus-host interactions, vaccine delivery systems and on the biology and pathogenesis of emerging viruses. His work has been presented in several international scientific meetings.