Co-investigators and team members

Dr Fatima Arthur, Expert Advisor

Maria de Fatima Serra Ribeiro Arthur has joined the project team as an expert advisor. Fatima brings extensive experience as the previous Executive Director for People and Corporate Services, Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM). Prior to this Fatima held a variety positions including EDM Director for Corporate Performance Management; member of the SAPP planning sub-committee; senior engineer at the central department for power generation and gas turbine operator and planning engineer at Maputo thermal coal-fired power station. Fatima has also chaired the Mechanical Engineering College at the Professional Association of Engineers of Mozambique; served as a commissioner and board member at Mozambique’s power sector regulator - the National Electricity Council and lectured at Mozambique’s Eduardo Mondlane University, on the subjects of renewable energy and corrosion and metal protection.

Amare Assefa, Addis Ababa University

Amare Assefa holds a B.Sc and M.sc. degree in Electrical Power Engineering from Addis Ababa University (AAU). Currently, he is a PhD student on a joint program in the University de Lorraine, France and AAU. Amare is a lecturer in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology and AAU. He has been involved in several local and international collaborative research projects in the field of electrical power and renewable energy. Amare is a member of Ethiopian Electrical Engineers Society and his research interests are microgrid, renewable energy technologies and power system protection and reliability. Amare will join the CESET team to provide research support and map the professional context of the energy learners and professional associations. Specifically, he will focus on the content of courses, who takes them, the quality, what happened to those who come out of these programmes i.e. the journey of graduates and usefulness of the courses undertaken. This will help to map the professional context of energy.

Dr I dalina Baptista, University of Oxford

Idalina is an Associate Professor in Urban Anthropology. Her current research interests focus on the colonial and post-colonial geographies of urban energy infrastructure and urbanisation in African cities, using Maputo, Mozambique as a case study. Idalina’s work adopts a multi-perspective approach, drawing intellectual and methodological insights from a diversity of disciplinary fields, including urban studies/geography, anthropology, and science and technology studies. Through her research, Idalina seeks to deepen our understanding of African urbanization, the governance of urban infrastructures in Africa, and what urban livelihoods emerge as a result.

Dr Getachew Bekele, Addis Ababa University

Getachew is an Ethiopian with a Ph.D. in Energy Technology from The Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Sweden, MSc, BSc in Electrical Engineering from Addis Ababa University. Currently, Associate Professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering/Addis Ababa Institute of Technology/Addis Ababa University. He has written a book "Study of a Standalone Solar-Wind Hybrid Electric Energy Supply System For Rural Electrification in Ethiopia (ISBN: 978-3-639-06194-9), several publications in international journals, conference proceedings, reports and supervises numerous M.Sc. and PhD students. Getachew has been awarded a number of research grants. He has been a speaker and participant in UN-ECA organized conferences and universities and guest researcher at The Royal Institute of Technology for one year (2014).

Professor Vanesa Castán Broto, University of Sheffield

Vanesa is a Professor of Climate Urbanism at the Urban Institute. Her work focuses on the governance of climate change in urban areas, and she has an interest on community action, participatory planning, and offgrid energy solutions. In addition to CESET, she leads the project ‘Low Carbon Action in Ordinary Cities,’ funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. Vanesa received the Philip Leverhulme Prize on Geography in 2016. She is also a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and lead contributor for the UN-Habitat World Cities Reports in 2016 and 2020. Her latest books are Urban Sustainability and Justice (2019, London: ZED Books) and Urban Energy Landscapes (2019, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Dr Carlos Alberto Cuvilas, University Eduardo Mondlane

Carlos is a Mozambican Senior Researcher and Lecturer in Renewable Energy at University Eduardo Mondlane. He is also a member of the scientific council of the Department of Chemical Engineering. He has been involved in Renewable energy and related disciplines for over 17 years having started working at the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1993. Carlos has Ph.D. degree from Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden) in Energy and Furnace Technology.

Dawit Habtu Gebremeskel, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology

Dawit Habtu Gebremeskel is a Lecturer in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT). He specialized in Electrical Power Engineering in his BSc and MSc studies. He is currently doing his PhD on “Long-term energy systems modelling and planning” in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden. He is also involved in consulting different projects in the area of Electrical power and energy engineering. Dawit is part of the CESET team working on thinking strategically about policy impact which aims to build a roadmap to facilitate the inclusion of off-grid infrastructure or Community Energy as a strategy for energy access.

Dr Mulualem Gebreslassie, Mekelle University

Mulualem is an Associate Professor of Renewable Energy at the Ethiopian Institute of Technology-Mekelle, Mekelle University. He has over 17 years of extensive leadership, project management, research and teaching experience in the energy sector. His work focuses on project management, renewable energy development, energy conservation and management, Grid and off-grid energy systems, energy access, energy transition and energy policy. He has been and is currently involved in several national and international collaborative research and capacity building projects worth of multi-million dollar as principal and co-principal investigator. The key focus of these projects include comparative analysis of off-grid and/or community energy systems in few African countries in facilitating energy access, renewable energy technology developments, understanding of the impact of energy policy in facilitating energy access, energy technologies and social interactions in the quest to facilitate energy access, curriculum and programme development in the energy sector, capacity building through funding for students at postgraduate level, energy auditing in industries to develop effective way of energy conservation and management to improve energy efficiency, off-grid energy technology developments, and other related areas

Christopher Bill Hara, Mzuzu University

Christopher is a Research Assistant at Mzunu Universtity. Christopher is a well-trained renewable energy specialist with research and project management skills and experience in renewable and clean energy deployment. He has over 3 years of experience in the agriculture and energy sectors where he has engaged in community development and undertaken market research and energy feasibility studies. Christopher will be working with the CESET team to undertake project surveys, review energy policies, map stakeholders in Malawi and write case studies.

Lorraine Howe, Centre for Research on Governance and Development

Lorraine has been working on research and development projects in sub-Saharan Africa for over 15 years. Her research interests are focused on inclusive socio-economic development and how this intersects with low carbon development transitions and adaptation to climate change. Lorraine joined the Centre for Research on Governance and Development (CPGD) in 2015 and she coordinates the Centre’s research in Mozambique in the areas of governance, youth and development. She is currently a co-principal investigator of the UKAID funded project: ‘A political-economic analysis of electricity grid access histories and futures in Mozambique’. Lorraine previously worked in the Governance and Institutional Development Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat where she was responsible for the deployment of technical assistance projects across 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to that she was the Programme Manager of the Energy, Environment and Development Programme at Chatham House where she coordinated a cutting-edge research programme focused on environmental governance, climate change and energy security. Lorraine holds a MSc in Development Management and BSc in Environmental Science.

Dr Joshua Kirshner, University of York

Joshua is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the University of York’s Department of Environment and Geography. His research interests lie in urban development, energy, extractive industries, climate disruption and sustainable societies. He has carried out extensive fieldwork in Mozambique, South Africa, Brazil, Bolivia, Mexico and the USA. In addition to contributing to the CESET project, he co-leads a two-year DFID-funded project on electricity grid access histories and futures in Mozambique, examining governance of energy provision in urban and peri-urban regions. A new project explores connections between energy resilience and post-disaster recovery in eastern Africa. Much of his current work involves applying political economy and ecology perspectives to understand and address entrenched challenges including energy poverty, social exclusion, xenophobia and socio-environmental injustices.

Dr Domingos A. Macucule, University Eduardo Mondlane

Domingos is a Mozambican certificated architect, urban and regional planner who has ten years of experience in research, consultancy, and advocacy in the field of sustainable urban development, urban planes and cultural heritage. In the last six years, he has focused his works on urban governance, integrating climate change resilience into spatial planning and urban design. His experience includes research development of climate change, improvement of informal settlements, adaptation planning, and urban mobility. Currently, Domingo’s research activity includes energy access, governance of urban services provision and infrastructure, migration and sustainability. Domingos earned his DPhil (Ph.D.) in Geography and Territorial Planning from The University Nova de Lisboa in Portugal in April, 2016. Domingos works as Senior Lecture at the Faculty of Architecture and Physical Planning at the University Eduardo Mondlane teaching and undertaking research in Laboratory of Physical Planning, Urban Ecology and Urban Mobility. Domingos is also affiliated as a Senior Planner and Head of the Centre of Studies and Development of Habitat in Mozambique. Prior to his doctoral, he also worked as architect in the Department of Urbanization and Building at the Maputo City Municipal Council after he worked in Cultural Heritage at the National Direction. In 2013 Domingos was a member of the team of the project recognized as “Lighthouse Activity for Climate Change” by the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change. In 2014, Domingos was awarded "Fellows Sustainable Urbanisation II", and attended the seminar in Taiwan.

Martin Mganyasi, Eduardo Mondlane University

Martin is an Architect and Research assistant at the Center for Habitat studies and Development at Eduardo Mondlane University. Currently a MSc. in Urban and Regional Planning Candidate, Martin hold a BSc. Architecture and Physical Planning from Eduardo Mondlane University. He is also a Certified Associate in Project Management by Project Management Institute. For the past four years, Martin has been working in various consulting and research projects especially in the areas of: socio-urbanistic and housing interventions; informal settlements upgrade, energy access and mobility. Martin is responsible for systematizing the spatial data and creating the base map for site selection for the lab as part of WP4.

Professor Yacob Mulugetta, University College London

Yacob is a Professor of Energy and Development Policy at the University College London; and held an academic post at the Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, UK. He is
a founding member of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) based in Ethiopia where he worked as Senior Climate & Energy Specialist (2010-2013). He has 25 years of research, teaching and advisory experience specialising on the links between energy infrastructure provision and human welfare. His research is focused on three interconnected areas: energy systems and development; energy systems and climate change; and political economy of low carbon development. Yacob has participated in several projects over the years. He has served as a Coordinating Lead Author of the Energy Systems chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5thAssessment Report (Working Group III on Mitigation), lead author in the IPCC SpecialReport on Global Warming of 1.5oC, and currently lead author in the IPCC 6thAssessment Report on Demand, Services and Mitigation. He recently led the chapter on Energy Transitions in UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report (2019). Yacob Mulugetta is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS).

Professor Marcus Power, Durham University

Marcus is a Professor of Human Geography. His research interests include critical geopolitics and the political geographies of (post)development; energy geographies and low-carbon transitions in the global South; and China–Africa relations and the role of (re)emerging development donors in South–South development cooperation. Much of his work to date has been focused on Lusophone Africa (specifically Mozambique and Angola) where he has been conducting research for just over 25 years. He is co-author of China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa: Powering Development? (Palgrave, 2012) and author of Rethinking Development Geographies (Routledge, 2003) and Geopolitics and Development (Routledge, 2019).

Sandy Robinson, Scene

Sandy specialises in community energy and energy access research and project development at Scene. He is an accomplished project manager, primarily managing Scene’s UK community energy research – including the annual ‘Community Energy: State of the Sector’ – and Scene’s contributions to off-grid energy access research. Currently he manages several projects across Uganda, Rwanda and Nepal, including projects focused low carbon energy solutions in humanitarian settings and innovative smart solar irrigation technologies. Sandy has a background in climate change, specialising specifically in community-led, participatory approaches to both mitigation and adaptation, with an MSc in Climate Change & International Development from the University of East Anglia.

Dr Carlos Shenga, Centre for Research on Governance and Development

Carlos holds a Ph.D., in political studies from the University of Cape Town); is the founder of the Centre for Research on Governance and Development (CPGD); and Assistant Professor at the University Joaquim Chissano, Mozambique. Carlos have more than 15 years of social science research experience designing analytical frameworks, collecting data, writing reports and disseminating the findings. His involvement on energy studies includes the political economy of energy and the impact of electricity service delivery on election outcomes. He is currently a co-Principal Investigator of ‘A political-economic analysis of electricity grid access histories and futures in Mozambique’ a UKAID funded project led by the University of York.

Professor AbdouMaliq Simone, University of Sheffield

Maliq is a Senior Professorial Fellow in the Urban Institute and an urbanist with an abiding interest in the spatial and social compositions of urban regions. He is a research associate at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, visiting professor of sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, visiting professor at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, research associate with the Rujak Center for Urban Studies in Jakarta, and research fellow at the University of Tarumanagara. AbdouMaliq has a long background working in urban areas of Africa, South and Southeast Asia, with a particular interest in the everyday lives of Muslim working class residents. For three decades, AbdouMaliq has worked with practices of social interchange, technical arrangements, local economy, and the constitution of power relations that affect how heterogeneous cities are lived. He has worked on remaking municipal systems, training local government personnel, designing collaborative partnerships among technicians, residents, artists, and politicians. The focus of these efforts has to been to build viable institutions capable of engaging with the complexities of life across the so-called “majority world".

Adugnaw Lake Temesgen, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology

Adugnaw Lake holds a B.Sc degree in Electrical Power Engineering from Addis Ababa University (AAU) and M.Sc in Smart Grids and Buildings from Grenoble INP in France. Adugnaw is a lecturer in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology of Addis Ababa University. Currently, he is doing his PhD on a joint program, in Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden and Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, entitled “Geospatial Power Planning for remote areas in Ethiopia”. Adugnaw is part of the CESET team working on mapping the current capacities for energy learning in East Africa. This involves creating an inventory of existing education programmes that work on energy, starting in Ethiopia before extending to Malawi and Mozambique.

Dr Harshit Vallecha, STEER - Loughborough University

Harshit is a Research Associate in Community Energy Systems (CES) at STEER centre, Loughborough University. He is working jointly on CESET project and Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme. His work in CESET project is focused on evaluating landscape of CES in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. His research investigates different ways in which CES projects contributes in building resilience. He will be working on identifying success factors and best practices for CES projects relevant to East Africa. In addition, he will be providing technical and research mentoring to MECS partners for scaling up of modern energy cooking services through community energy resilience in Global South.

Prior to joining the CESET program, Harshit worked as a Research Scholar at IIT Kharagpur, India where his work was focused on evaluating community renewable energy systems for sustainable electricity access in India. He has a transdisciplinary research background across engineering and social sciences. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and submitted his PhD thesis in Sustainable Energy Transitions recently. He is the recipient of prestigious Fulbright Fellowship (2021) at University of Nebraska Lincoln, USA for his research on enhancing rural energy access for energy deprived communities in India.

Dr Vicky Simpson, University of Sheffield

Vicky is a highly competent and qualified research manager with over 17 years’ experience managing interdisciplinary research centres and institutes in the HE sector. Vicky’s responsibilities include: project management and delivery; financial management; impact and dissemination; data management; stakeholder engagement; events coordination and research support. Vicky obtained degrees from Manchester Metropolitan University BA (1997); MA (1998) and PhD (2004) and the University of Portsmouth (MSc, 2005). Vicky has also been awarded a Post Graduate Teaching Certificate (2009). After teaching, research and management appointments at Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Manchester and the University of Salford, Vicky joined the Urban Institute in September 2016. Drawing on her research background, Vicky project manages a portfolio of large-scale UK and EU research grants across the Urban Institute.

Dr Long Seng To, Loughborough University

Long Seng is an Engineering for Development Research Fellow funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering at Loughborough University, and is an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at University College London. Her research focuses on enhancing community energy resilience using renewable energy in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Nepal and Malawi. She has an interdisciplinary background with a Batchelor of Engineering in Photovoltaic and Solar Energy Engineering, a Batchelor of Arts in History and Philosophy of Science, and a PhD that spans both disciplines. Her previous research included mapping the synergies and trade-offs between energy and the Sustainable Development Goals; agro-industries and clean energy in Africa; capacity development for renewable energy projects in rural China and Indonesia; solar-powered water purification in remote areas in Australia; and local manufacture of solar photovoltaic systems in Nicaragua. She also engages regularly with policymakers, most recently helping to create a standard for solar resource classification as part of the UN Economic Commision for Europe's Expert Group on Resource Management, Renewables Working Group. Find out more about her work here: longsengto.com.

Dr Hita Unnikrishnan, University of Sheffield

Hita joins the CESET team and will work across all four key pillars of work. Hita joined the Urban Institute as a post-doctoral researcher on a Newton International Fellowship. Her work focuses on histories of urban water commons within the south Indian city of Bengaluru. Hita’s research interests lie in the interface of urban ecology, systems thinking, resilience, urban environmental history and urban political ecology as it relates to the evolution, governance, and management of common pool resources in cities of the global south. Her doctoral research has focused on the changing ecological and social vulnerabilities of the social ecological system represented by lakes within Bengaluru. Her work has been published in reputed peer reviewed journals such as Urban Ecosystems, Society and Natural Resources, and the International Journal of the Commons. Her work combines several methods including analysis of archival literature, oral histories, GIS, ecological field studies, and ethnography, while at the same time spanning different temporal and spatial scales.

Dr Collen Zalengera, Mzuzu University

Collen is a Senior Lecturer in Renewable Energy Technologies in the Department of Energy Systems in Malawi. He is a registered engineer with the Malawi Board of Engineers and member of Malawi Institution of Engineers. His teaching, research and publications are focussed on renewable energy innovations and diffusions, particularly, in solar photovoltaic, wind power and biogas technology for enhancement of sustainable livelihoods. He has over 12 years of experience in the energy sector with key involvements in technical as well as institutional and policy matters of renewable energy. As a practitioner he focuses on techno-economic feasibility studies; community mobilization, policy evaluation and analysis; broad energy legal framework; national energy strategic planning, environmental and social impact assessments for energy projects; standard-compliance and regulatory structures; training and training manual design; energy efficiency approaches; power quality assurance; and project evaluation. In his practice he has worked with academic and industry experts from Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, South Africa, USA, Turkey, Switzerland, Japan and United Kingdom in a number of projects.