PhD Scholars
Agbedahin, Adesuwa Vanessa
BEd (Hons) in Education of the hearing Impaired, Unijos, Nigeria; MEd in Environmental Education, Rhodes University.
Vanessa is a full-time PhD scholars in the Environmental Learning Research Centre. Her research is in the context of Higher Education Institutions and sustainability issues and practices. It is located within the Mainstreaming Education and Sustainability in African (MESA) Universities Partnership and The Global University Partnership on Environment and Sustainability (GUPES) university programme framework. She is doing a case study of the Sida sponsored International programme Training programme (ITP) on ESD. Her study seeks to do a morphogenetic analysis of university based change projects, analyse existing socio-ecological conditions, structures and contexts in which university lecturers work, the role they play as agents and the outstanding impact of their involvement in the ITP ESD.
Aristides Baloi
Aristides Baloi is currently registered as a PhD scholar with the Environmental Learning Research Centre. He works at the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique as a lecturer in Geography. His research interest is in transformative learning in community-based natural resource management contexts. Aristides is involved in the Mozambique Regional Centre of Expertise in ESD, and is also involved in the Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in African Universities Programme.
Dick Kachilonda
Dick Kachilonda is currently registered as a PhD scholar with the Environmental Learning Research Centre. He works as manager of materials development and networking at the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme. His research interest is community learning and sustainability practices, with specific reference to how communities learn co-management practices in community-based natural resource management contexts to inform extension and training. Dick has a history of working on fisheries education and community-based natural resources management in Malawi.
David Lindley
David Lindly; BSc (Hons) in Zoology (Rhodes), MEd Environmental Education
For 18 years, David Lindley has worked for the not-for-profit organisation, the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa. Here he manages the Mondi Wetlands Programme (MWP), which supports social change and wetland sustainability practice. David’s PhD research supports the expansive teaching of employees from the Mondi corporation. His work involves crossing disciplinary and job description boundaries to identify and analyse factors that inhibit the integration of wetland sustainability practice, and then collaborating on solutions. The research is based on social learning, Engeström’s Expansive Learning Theory and third-generation Cultural Historical Activity Theory. The purpose of the research is to better understand informal adult learning processes and institutional factors that can support the initiation of social change for better wetland management.
Caleb Mandikonza
Caleb Mandikonza; BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences (University of Zimbabwe),
MEd in Environmental Education (Rhodes), taught Biology and Physical Science
in schools and at teacher training level.
Caleb is currently registered as a
PhD scholar with the Environmental Learning Research Centre. He works as
training manager at the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme. His
research interest is in change-oriented professional development programmes
with specific reference to a pedagogical and institutional change initiative
supported by the SADC REEP, namely ‘change projects’ in professional
learning of teachers. Caleb co-ordinates a southern African teacher
education network in environment and sustainability education.
Mary Murphey
Mary Murphy; BA (Hons) Peace Studies (Northern Ireland), MA International Relations, (Wits)
Not your typical academic, Mary is navigating the borders between scholarship and the ‘real world’ through a creatively conceived PhD. Her thesis analyses how semiotics and representation affect the relationship between structure and agency. Her thesis is intended to be a tool for teaching Environmental Education and thus written in the form of a story. Since 2003, Mary has been blogging her PhD process, http://mary.fullcycle.co.za. When she’s not working on her PhD, Mary runs her own companies, FullCycle and Carbon Countdown, both of which are dedicated to simple environmental solutions and environmental education.
Tichaona Pesanayi
Tichona Pesanayi
Tichaona grew up in rural Zimbabwe before gaining exposure to urban environments, the surrounding countries and other continents. He is concerned with people and their livelihoods, and hence his research focuses on transformative social learning for adaptive change. Tichaona’s has a background in Environmental Education and training in natural science, and currently works for the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme. This work has exposed him to the rich cultural diversity of South Africa, the struggles of its people and the environmental and sustainability concerns of the region. In order to better understand his regional environmental work and its relationship to the global scheme, Tichaona is doing a PhD focussing on social learning across boundaries within water, seed security and natural resource management activity systems.
Presha Ramsurup
Presha Ramsurup is currently registered as a PhD scholar with the Environmental Learning Research Centre. She has worked at national level in the National Environmental Education Programme in South Africa, and works for Delta Environmental Centre on various projects. Most recently, she assisted with the research for South Africa’s Environmental Sector Skills Plan. Her research looks into learning pathways for key occupations in the environmental sector, and has an interest in examining how learning pathways are constructed, established and enabled.
Daniel Sabai
Daniel Sabai; MSc, Wageningen University ( Netherlands)
Daniel’s journey with environmental science began with undergraduate studies in his home country of Tanzania and continued when he became a lecturer of Geography and Environmental Science at Dar es Salaam University’s College of Education. This road now brings him to South Africa, where Daniel is investigating the significance of abstraction in the social learning processes, and its potential contribution to the development of community-based management of coastal and marine resources in the Eastern Coast of Tanzania. Among other things, Daniel’s research interests include: urban environmental management, waste management and public health and indigenous knowledge systems.
Mogamat Fadli Wagiet
MEd (Rhodes)
Fadli’s PhD is in the area of curriculum policy and cognitive sense making processes at the district-school interface. Through life histories he is analysing policy practice gaps and professional development experience.
