MONSOONS PANEL
REGIONAL WORKING GROUP ON AFRICAN MONSOONS: MEMBERS
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Masilin Gudoshava,Co-ChairInter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), Kenya Dr Gudoshava is a lead research scientist at ICPAC, which is a designated WMO Regional Climate Centre. She holds a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from North Carolina State University, USA. Her key research interests include climate prediction at sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales, statistical and dynamical climate downscaling, forecast verification, climate variability and climate change modelling. She is also an AIMS-NEI (African Institute for Mathematical Sciences Next Einstein Initiative) fellow for Women in Climate Change Science. Read more... |
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Paul-Arthur Monerie,Co-ChairUniversity of Reading/National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), UK Dr. Monerie is a Senior Research Scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the University of Reading. His expertise lies in understanding the impacts of climate variability and change on the West African Monsoon. His research focuses on the zonal contrast in projected changes in Sahel precipitation, the influence of external forcings—such as greenhouse gases and anthropogenic aerosols—on the monsoon system, and the decadal prediction of tropical precipitation. A key objective of his work is to understand better the uncertainties surrounding the effects of climate change on Sahel rainfall. In addition to his work on climate change and tropical climate dynamics, he also investigates seasonal to decadal variability and the global influence of North Atlantic climate patterns. Read more... |
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Rondrotiana Barimalala (Member, CLIVAR/GEWEX Monsoons Panel)Norwegian Research Center, Bergen, Norway Dr Barimalala is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Research Center, Bergen, Norway. Her research interests include climate variability, modeling and change; air-sea interaction and African climate. She is a lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the IPCC, Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis. Read more... |
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Samson Hagos (Member, CLIVAR/GEWEX Monsoons Panel)Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA Dr. Hagos earned his PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from Cornell University in 2008. Following his doctoral studies, he served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. In 2009, he joined PNNL, where his research interests focus on understanding and modeling precipitation processes across various spatio-temporal scales. His expertise spans from the life-cycles of individual convective cells to tropical intra-seasonal oscillations, atmospheric rivers, and the inter-annual to multi-decadal variations of monsoon systems. He has conducted significant research on West African and East African monsoons, among others. Read more... |
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Akintomide Afolayan AkinsanolaUniversity of Illinois Chicago/Argonne National Laboratory, USA Dr. Akinsanola is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago, USA. He also holds a joint appointment in the Environmental Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, USA. He utilizes variety of climate models and observations to better understand climate dynamics, especially processes that impact tropical and mid-latitude precipitation. He previously worked at the Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria, and the University of Georgia, USA. He has extensive experience teaching and conducting scientific research in the areas of tropical monsoon systems. Read more... |
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Mojisola AdeniyiUniversity of Ibadan, Nigeria Dr Adeniyi is Reader and Head of the Atmospheric Physics Research Unit and Coordinator of Postgraduate Programmes, Department of Physics at the University of Ibadan. She is a Senior Associate of Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy. As part of the ICTP Working Group, she had participated in the analysis of the late 21st century shift in the regional monsoons in RegCM-CORDEX simulations. She is interested in understanding the dynamics of changes in monsoon patterns, especially over Africa and the effect of the changes on the environment and humans. Read more... |
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Ismaila DialloSan Jose State University, USA Dr Diallo is an Assistant Professor of Climate Science in the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, as well as member of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San José State University. He received his M.S. degree in Meteorology and Ph.D. degree in Climate and Climatic Impacts from Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. Dr Diallo has been involved in a variety of climate research activities over the past 14 years, particularly focusing on the use of observational datasets, remote sensing and numerical modeling approaches to study climate variability and change on broad timescales, as well as to advance the understanding on the role of land-atmosphere biophysical interactions processes in the climate system, with a special emphasis on monsoon systems and the mechanisms involved. Read more... |
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Ross DixonUniversity of Nebraska Lincoln, USA Dr Dixon is an Assistant Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. His research is focused on climate modeling, regional climate dynamics and projections of precipitation. His doctoral work looked at the representation of the Saharan heat low in CMIP simulations and its connection with precipitation biases. He did a postdoctoral position at CNRM (France) where he looked at the West African Monsoon in an idealized model to understand the sensitivity of changes in the monsoon to changes in forcings. Currently he is collaborating on CMIP6 projections of West African climate. Read more... |
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Aissatou FayeUCAR-CPAESS, NOAA Climate Prediction Center, Maryland, USA Dr. Faye is a Visiting Scientist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) through the Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS), hosted at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center in Maryland, USA. She holds a Ph.D. in Meteorology and Climate Science from the Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria, through the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Research Programme, with support from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Scholarship Programme. Before her current role, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia (UVA), USA. Her research focuses on climate change and variability, extreme climate events, the West African monsoon, climate modeling, prediction and forecasting, air pollution, and environmental justice. Read more... |
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Neil HartUniversity of Oxford, UK Dr Hart is a Departmental Lecturer in Physical Geography and Career Development Fellow Member of the Climate Systems research cluster at the University of Oxford. His past research focused on the subtropical wave processes that give rise to tropical-extratropical cloud bands. His PhD research, completed at the University of Cape Town in 2012, investigated the role of tropical-extratropical cloud bands in southern African summer rainfall variability. His current research focuses on the role of these waves in facilitating monsoon onset over southern Africa. This is complemented by ongoing fieldwork over the Katanga Plateau where the southern African monsoon first starts. The above work includes research on drivers of interannual variability and future decline in early season rainfall over southern Africa. Read more... |
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Rachel JamesUniversity of Bristol, UK Dr James is a Senior Lecturer at School of Geographical Sciences, Cabot Institute for the Environment at the University of Bristol. For her PhD work, she examined future climate model projections over African regions, including examining physical mechanisms of change. She had worked as a postdoctoral researcher on two Future Climate for Africa programmes: IMPALA (Improving Model Processes for African cLimAte), and UMFULA (Uncertainty reduction rn Models For Understanding deveLopment Applications). She is particularly interested in developing research to support adaptation to changing hydroclimate risk in Africa, and developing science to inform international climate change policy. Much of her work involves analysing processes and mechanisms of change, particularly in climate models. Read more... |
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Shingirai NangombeDanish Meteorological Institute, Denmark Dr. Nangombe is a research scientist engaged in climate modeling focusing on the Southern Africa domain. Prior to this he was a senior researcher focusing on climate modeling anf climate services at CSIR, South Africa. Earlier to this, he did his postdocs at the German Weather Services (DWD) and ETH-Zurich where he has worked on the detection and attribution of climate extremes over Southern Africa and the influence of the Antarctica stratospheric polar vortex influence on the South African climate. His research interests are atmospheric dynamics, climate modelling, attribution of climate extremes, and climate variability, all in the context of Southern Africa. He has worked earlier in Zimbabwe's Meteorological office for 10 years holding portfolios such as public and aviation weather forecaster, climate services expert, climate change officer, climate scientist and Numerical Weather Prediction Scientist. Read more... |
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Kénedy SilvérioUniversity of São Paulo, Brazil & Higher Polytechnic Institute of Songo, Mozambique Dr Silvério is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences. Prior to this he was an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Division and Junior Researcher at Higher Polytechnic Institute of Songo (ISPS). His research interests are climate variability (including its associated physical mechanisms) and its impacts on southern Africa monsoon from intraseasonal to multidecadal scales. He obtained his B.Sc. in Meteorology and M.Sc. in Climatology, from the Russian State Hydrometeorological University, a WMO Regional Training Center, and Ph.D. in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering from Federal University of Paraná, Brazil. Read more... |
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Caroline WainwrightUniversity of Leeds, UK Dr Wainwright is a Lecturer at Cardiff University, UK. Her research is focused on the local and remote drivers of variability and change of African climate across decadal and centennial timescales. In particular, much of her research is focused on the seasonality of rainfall. She has developed a new methodology for analysing wet seasons, applicable at the continental scale, which was used to assess future projections of changing seasonality across Africa. She is also studying model representation of the Little Dry Season (West Africa), linkages of the recent decline in the East African long rains with changing seasonal timing, and changing precipitation seasonality over East Africa in convection-permitting models. Read more... |
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Ademe MekonnenNorth Carolina A&T State University, USA Dr. Mekonnen is a Professor of Atmospheric Science in the Department of Physics, North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, NC. His research is broadly on tropical climate variability and change. His focus is on African climate variability and mechanisms that determine variabilities. He studies precipitation processes and convection at all scales. He has extensive experience in weather and climate studies and served as meteorologist in Ethiopia.. Read more... |
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Kamoru Abiodun LawalACMAD, Niger Dr. Lawal is a Climate Change Thematic Expert at ACMAD. Previously he briefly acted as the director of NiMet’s Department of Research and Training from 2016 to 2017. He was also the pioneer General Manager of the NWP unit in NiMet. Lawal became a Research Associate after his Postdoctoral Research Fellow (PDRF) at the UCT’s African Climate and Development Initiatives (ACDI: http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/) where he is currently working on weather / climate event attributions in the southern and western African contexts. He participated, as one of the NiMet’s scientists, in the $10m worth United Kingdom funded Global Challenges Research Fund for African Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Techniques (UK GCRF African-SWIFT: https://africanswift.org).. Read more... |
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Charles Bwalya ChisangaThe Copperbelt University, Zambia Dr. Chisanga has expertise in climate modelling and application of satellite rainfall products such as CHIRPS, ARC2, TAMSAT, etc. Additionally, he has experience in climate modelling research in Zambia and the region focusing on climate change, variability and drought analysis. He has also been contributing to the Zambia's National Adaptation Plain, Third National Communication and Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) document to the UNFCCC. Read more... |
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Paul T. S. LimbuUniversity of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania Dr. Limbu is a Senior Lecturer in Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at the Department of Physics, College of Natural and Applied Sciences (CoNAS), University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), Tanzania. He holds a PhD and MSc in Meteorology from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, and a BSc (Ed) with honors from the University of Dar es Salaam. His research interests span a broad range of climate and atmospheric science disciplines, including climatology and climate variability, ocean-atmosphere interactions, climate change, data assimilation, regional climate modeling, and climate prediction and projection. Dr. Limbu has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers focusing on rainfall variability, drought characteristics, temperature trends, and climate impacts across East Africa. . Read more... |
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Laban KebachoUniversity of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania Dr. Kebacho is a Lecturer in Meteorology at the University of Dar es Salaam, where he contributes to academic growth through teaching at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His research is dedicated to advancing methodologies and techniques that aid in the precise identification and comprehensive characterization of rainfall variability throughout the tropical regions. A significant part of his work also involves exploring the fundamental drivers behind tropical climate variability. His research explores climate variability across tropical regions, holding a particular interest in understanding rainfall variability patterns. He has have specifically developed and applied a methodology for characterizing the dynamics of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) within the context of Tanzania. Read more... |
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Dike Victor NnamdiChinese Academy of Sciences, China Dr. Dike is a visiting Associate Professor at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, specializing in weather/climate extremes and atmospheric dynamics. With dual Ph.D. degrees in Atmospheric Physics (Imo State University, Nigeria) and Meteorology (Chinese Academy of Sciences), his research examines climate system interactions driving extremes across tropical and mid-latitude regions, particularly through oceanic-atmospheric teleconnections such as the Trans-Atlantic-Pacific Dipole and their influence on monsoons, droughts, and rainfall variability. He has extensive experience using CMIP5/CMIP6 models to project and attribute future changes in monsoon extremes, droughts, and precipitation under warming scenarios. Recent projects include using ML/DL to improve S2S prediction of extreme rainfall over West Africa, while advancing climate risk assessment frameworks for national planning and disaster mitigation. His work integrates observational datasets and climate models to assess the impacts of monsoon extremes on water resources and agriculture, directly supporting climate adaptation strategies in Africa. His contributions bridge innovative climate science with actionable strategies, fostering climate resilience through interdisciplinary research, multicultural collaboration, and impactful publications on adaptation, atmospheric dynamics, and climate extremes. His work addresses urgent climate challenges in Africa and beyond, aligning scientific advancement with sustainable development goals. Read more... |
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Dahirou WaneCheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal Dr. Wane is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Senegal. He received his Ph.D. in Meteorology and Climate Science from the Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in collaboration with Sorbonne University of Paris. Previously he held a Postdoctoral position in climate change through the MOPGA (Make Our Planet Great Again), CNRS (France) and a postdoctoral fellowship under the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship program at Western University (WU), Ontario, Canada. His research interests focus on climate dynamics, climate change, climate variability, West African monsoon, extreme climate events, climate modeling, ocean-atmosphere interactions, Atmospheric and ocean dynamics, teleconnection, and atmospheric modelling. Read more... |
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Thierry TaguelaUniversity of Illinois Chicago (UIC), USA Dr. Taguela is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), USA. His research focuses on climate variability and change, with particular emphasis on mean precipitation, precipitation extremes, and monsoon dynamics. He has experience working with global and regional climate models, observational datasets, and climate projections to assess the impacts of global warming on hydroclimate over Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Climate Sciences and is strongly interested in interdisciplinary research to support climate adaptation strategies. Read more... |
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Birhan Getachew TikuyePrairie View A&M University, USA Dr. Tikuye is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas, USA. He holds a Ph.D. in Geoinformatics from Mangalore University, India, in 2023. He has more than 10 years of experience as a lecturer and researcher at Debre Tabor University, Ethiopia, was a visiting researcher at the Slovak Academy of Science, Slovakia, and Trinity Dublin College, Ireland, and a Postdoctoral researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science, China. Dr. Tikuye’s research experts include nature-based solutions to combat climate change, carbon sequestration, hydrological and soil erosion modeling, Land use/land cover change detection, Climate change adaptation and mitigation, Climate change projection and modelling, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and remote sensing applications. Read more... |
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Koffi WorouSwedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes, Uppsala University, Sweden Dr. Koffi Worou is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Meteorology section of the Air, Water, and Landscape Sciences program at Uppsala University. He is also affiliated with the Swedish Centre for the Impact of Climate Extremes. Dr. Worou is a climate physicist specializing in climate modeling and the dynamics of the climate system. His research focuses on the variability of the West African monsoon and its relationship with internal oceanic modes of variability. A significant part of his work examined the past and future impacts of the Atlantic equatorial mode on rainfall patterns in the coastal regions of West Africa. He currently holds a postdoctoral position working on the impacts of compound climate extremes and the development of climate disaster databases using large language models. Read more... |
Komkuoa Mbienda A JUniversity of Dschang, Cameroon Prof. Komkuoa Mbienda is an Associate Professor at the University of Dschang (Laboratory of Environmental Physics) and former Research Associate at the Earth System Physics section of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Italy. He has completed his PhD at the University of Yaoundé I, Laboratory of Environmental Modelling and Atmospheric Physics in collaboration with ICTP. His researches deal with climate modelling, climate variability and climatic impacts of atmospheric aerosols at regional scale. He is also an expert of environmental impact assessment. Read more... |