Prof Jean-Marie Kileshye Onema, WaterNet Executive Manager. BRECcIA Co-Investigator
Jean-Marie Kileshye Onema executes and co-ordinates all WaterNet activities as the Head of WaterNet Executive Management. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the School of Engineering and Built Environment, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; a Master’s Degree in Water Resources Engineering and Management (WREM), from the University of Zimbabwe and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Lubumbashi. He is currently the interim Vice-President of the International Commission of Water Resources Systems (ICWRS) of IAHS and he represents Africa as the Regional Committee Member for DUPC at IHE Delft. Prof Kileshye Onema has an appointment as Associate Professor with the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Lubumbashi. His research interest covers water resources engineering and management capacity, building efforts with a strong focus on land use dynamics on regional hydrology.
Dr Tendai Polite Chibarabada, Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr Tendai Polite Chibarabada graduated with a Master of Science in Agriculture in 2015 and a PhD in Crop Science in 2018, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. She then moved to the University of the Free State to pursue a Postdoctoral Fellowship in collaboration with Wageningen University. For the past few years she worked on water use, physiology, nutritional value and nitrogen fixation of grain legumes. Dr Chibarabada has several publications that focus on alleviating food and nutritional insecurity in semi and arid environments. She has conducted extensive work on grain legumes and has experience in smallholder farming systems. Her research skills include agronomy, crop physiology, crop water use and crop modelling. She is currently based at WaterNet where she is conducting research on dryland agriculture. In addition, she is responsible for linking BRECcIA activities to the WaterNet Master Programme in Integrated Water Resources Management, the WaterNet symposium and any other SADC water research being implemented by WaterNet.
Catherine Tlotlo Kerapetse, Research Officer
Catherine is currently assessing/selecting an appropriate model to understand failures to curb or successes to transfer from the various projects research findings through up scaling and capacity building using SADC policies under WaterNet.
She is currently doing collaborative research on “multi-model hydrological analysis to assess water resources availability and variability across Kenya, Ghana and Malawi.”
Catherine would like to contribute to the world of research through engineering workable sustainable environmental management tools/solutions that are impact driven to the changing environment.
Dr. Goden Mabaya, Post-Doctoral Fellow
Dr. Goden Mabaya is the Post-Doctoral Fellow for the GCRF-BRECCIA project implemented by WaterNet. His role is to provide academic, scientific and technical support to the WaterNet activities under the GCRF BRECCIA project through implementation of designated WaterNet activities with a strong focus on policy engagement. Goden has particular research interest in sustainable agricultural water management and integrated land and water resources management, as well as climate change adaptation and proofing in agriculture. In the recent past he collaborated with Kyoto University to develop agricultural water management optimisation approaches that protect rural water resources from agrochemical pollution and from depletion caused by intensive agriculture systems and exacerbated by climate change induced droughts at minimum cost on agricultural productivity. Prior, he worked with UNDP, Meta Meta Research and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education to develop optimal approaches for coping with on-field water management uncertainties in spate irrigation schemes in Sudan.