Dr. Adegoke is an award winning climate scientist whose research focuses on understanding the relationships between changing land surface processes and diverse indicators of environmental change. He uses climate diagnostic tools, satellite remote sensing, and regional climate models to investigate these interactions at local and regional scales.

Dr. Adegoke is a Professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) where he recently served as Chair of the Department of Geosciences and Co-Director of the Center for Applied Environmental Research (CAER). He is widely sought after as an expert on regional climate impacts and has recently testified before the United States (U.S.) House of Representatives Select Committee on Global Warming & Energy Independence on the impacts of climate variability and climate change on the U.S. Midwest. His recent work focuses on societal impacts of environmental change, including air pollution studies in rapidly changing mid-latitude urban areas, climate impacts on water resources in the Lake Chad Basin, and coastal ecosystem dynamics in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Dr. Adegoke is a member of several professional societies including the American Geophysical Union (AGU), Association of American Geographers (AAG), and American Meteorological Society (AMS). He is on the Advisory Council of the African Association for Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE) and also serves on the Technical Advisory Board of several United Nations applied science programs, including the United Nations Educational Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO) cross-cutting project on the application of remote sensing for water resources and ecosystem management in Africa. Prior to relocating to Pretoria, South Africa to head up CSIR's Natural Resources & Environment Division as Executive Director, Dr. Adegoke lived in Kansas City where he is an appointee of the Mayor of Kansas City Missouri (KCMO) to the city's Environmental Management Commission (EMC).

Dr. Archer is a Principal Researcher in the Climate Studies and Modeling Group, at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (Natural Resources and Environment). After her PhD at Clark University in the northeastern US, and a NOAA Global & Climate Change postdoctoral fellowship at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) at Columbia University in New York, she was based at the Climate System Analysis Group (CSAG) at the University of Cape Town. She subsequently served as lecturer in the School of Geography, Archaeology & Environmental Studies at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. A geographer by training, with research interests in climate change impacts on managed ecosystems, she has experience throughout the SADC region. She has an honorary staff appointment at the University of Cape Town, where she supervises postgraduate students in the Climate Systems Analysis Group.

Dr Dziba has been involved in a number of human capital development initiatives including the Executive of the National Agricultural Education and Training Forum of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and the development of a Post-doctoral Fellowship Program in the Agricultural Research Council, where he used to work. He has supervised and mentored many students including two current PhD students as well as two MSc students.

Dr Dziba has represented South Africa in various capacities including more recently at an EU Summit on the “Dialogue between Europe and its Southern partners on Agricultural Research and Climate Change” held in Brussels, 16-17 Dec 2009. He has served in the Agriculture Task Team of the National Grasslands Biodiversity Conservation Programme and has served three terms in the Executive Council of the Grassland Society of South Africa (GSSA). He is a member of the GSSA, the International Rangelands Congress and the Society for Range Management and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

Peter Erb has worked for the past 22 years for the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism as researcher and professional manager. His research interests centred initially on large mammal ecology, more recently this has shifted to the interface between research on the one side and effective organizational design and management. He has worked in both Waterberg Plateau Park and the Etosha National Park. During the last ten years in a Head Office position, he has been in the Permit Office, was seconded to Namibia Wildlife Resorts as part of an interim management team, participated in the MCA tourism project formulation and was attached to the Office of the Permanent Secretary. Peter is married and has two children, who are currently completing their last years in school. Peter holds a M.Sc. in wildlife management and a MBA, both from Stellenbosch University.

Dr Manfred Finckh is a geoecologist by training, working in the lab for Biodiversity, Evolution and Ecology of Plants at the University of Hamburg. His main interest is the impact of land use on ecosystem integrity and dynamics. From 1992 to 2000 he coordinated projects on vegetation and birds in temperate forest ecosystems of southern Chile. From 2000 to 2010 he monitored vegetation dynamics in southern Morocco, with a focus on land use pressure and climate variability. Since 2010 he is part of the scientific coordination teams of “RSSC-Southern Africa” and “The Future Okavango”.
His expertise includes conservation projects, spatial planning, vegetation mapping and GIS.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang-Albert Flügel, (MSc: 1974; PhD: 1978; Habilitation: 1989) is head of the department for Geoinformatics, Hydrology and Modelling (DGHM) at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, Germany. He is an international recognized scientist on the field of Geoinformatics and Hydrology with numerous contacts to national and international research teams and institutions and more than 90 scientific publications as single author and in co-authorship.
From 1985 till 1990 Prof. Flügel was working as Senior Specialist Scientist at the Hydrological Research Institute (HRI) in South Africa and from 2002 till 2003 as Principal Hydrologist at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He also was visiting professor at universities in Mexico, South Africa, India and the US and member of expeditions to the Canadian Arctic and the Antacrtic,
His main research interests are applied Geoinformatics in process hydrology and hydrological systems analyses, regionalisation and GIS, hydrological basin modelling and the development of integrated Decision Information Support Tools (DIST). His research activities focus on (i) Integrated Land and Water Resources Management (ILWRM), (ii) distributed hydrological modelling, (iii) regionalization and regional multi-scale analysis of climate change, (iv) Climate Change impact assessment and analysis for adaptive ILWRM strategies, (v) sustainable irrigation management, (vi) dryland and irrigation salinity research and (vii) integrated DIST design. In realizing these research interests he had carried more than 90 international projects with national, European and international funding in Africa, Asia, Australia, Brazil, and Europe.

Abias Moma Huongo is a psycologist from Angola specialized in environmental themes. He has a longstanding experience in the design and management of environmental projects all over Angola, in environmental training projects, and as radio producer of environmental programs. Abias Huongo is Member of the Commission on Education and Communication of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), member of the Environmental Education Association in Southern Africa (EEASA). In 2010 he participated for UNFCCC in the "Consultative Group of Experts for the Elaboration of National Communications in non annex one countries" and the "Least Developed Expert Group (LEG)".

Study:

1980-High Institute of Electricity in Cuba
1988-Degree in geophysics at the University of Trieste Italy
2003-MSc in Geophysics at the University of Lisbon Portugal
2010-Start PhD in Cuba

Professional Experience

technical maintenance of electrical networks

2000-Geophysical prospecting for groundwater in crystalline rocks and sedimentary in several regions of Angola
2004-Responsible for the department of geophysics at the Faculty of Agostinho Neto University
2005.-implementation of the Seismological Network of Angola
2007-Geophysical Prospecting of Mineral Resources

Domingos Lucano holds an Engineering Degree in Agricultural Sciences from the State University of Irkutsk, Russia. He is specialized in soil analyses and worked several years as the head of the Research Unit of the National Seeds Service (SENSE) within the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Angola (MINADER). Currently he is the Director of the Central Laboratory for Soil and Food Analyses in Luanda and acts as the focal point for the RSSC process within the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Angola (MINADER).

Senior Lecturer, Department of Land Management and Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Tourism at the Polytechnic of Namibia. He holds a B. Eng (Surveying) degree and a MSc in Geo-informatics. He is also a PhD candidate in Geography at Justus Liebig Giessen University, researching and writing on Sustainability of Agro-based Bio-fuel Value Chains in the SADC region.
Previous full time jobs include the University of Zambia, Department of Surveying as a lecturer in GIS/LIS and Photogrammetry and, the Copperbelt University as Lecturer and researcher in GIS, remote sensing and spatial databases. He has also been involved in a number of development projects that have to do with environment, development and sustainability. He consulted widely for the mining sector, development agencies like IFAD, JICA, SIDA, UN Agencies and World Bank funded projects. He has worked as a consultant and researcher in bio-fuels, focusing on agric-based value chains in the SADC region.
He has served on a number of National Steering Committees, Regional and International Technical Working Groups in Land, Environment and Energy related sectors. He is also a visiting scholar at three European Universities.
He is a recipient of several merit awards like 1995 best graduating student in the Department of Surveying, School of Engineering, 1993-1994 NORAD merit award and fellowship given to 3 best engineering students, 2002 LEAD fellow scholarship for Leadership and Development; and recently the special Achievement in GIS Award, received from ESRI in July 2009 in San Diego.

Stefan Rösner received a diploma in meteorology at the University of Mainz. At this time his focus was on cloud physics.
Since 1992 he is working as a scientist in the German National Meteorological Service, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) in Offenbach, Germany. Since the very beginning he was involved in the development of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) at national and international levels.
He is member of the GCOS Steering Committee, served as topic coordinator of the "Climate" chapter in the 10 Years Implementation for a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), is chairing the WMO Regional Association VI Task Team on Regional Climate Centres (RCCs), serves as co-chair of the WMO Commission for Climatology (CCl) Expert Team on RCCs and is also coordinator of the WMO RA VI Pilot RCC-Network.
Since 2001 he is serving as expert advisor to the German Delegation to the UNFCCC sessions on matters related to systematic observation.

Ute Schmiedel is a biologist and a senior researcher at the working group Biodiversity, Evolution and Ecology of Plants at the University of Hamburg. Since 1994, she studies the vegetation in the Succulent Karoo in southern Africa. Through her involvement in BIOTA as coordinator and researcher since 2000, she developed a strong interest in rangeland management issues and participatory research as a means to develop adaptation strategies to climate change in Africa. She initiated, managed and conducted the para-ecologist programme of BIOTA Southern Africa from 2004 until 2010.