David L. Skole is Professor of Forestry. His research focuses on the role of forests and global climate change. His core research area is on the role of the biota, principally tropical forests, in the global carbon cycle. Recent focus of his work has been on climate change mitigation and adaptation in international development, with a focus on carbon measurement and accounting for REDD+. He has more than 25 years of experience with research on forestry and carbon. He was recognized for his climate change research as a member of the IPCC that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He was a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and served on its Forestry Committee. Dr. Skole was a Member of the USDA/USFS advisory group which developed US national forest carbon measurement protocols. He was advisor to the Forest Investment Program (World Bank Group) to develop its monitoring and reporting toolkit. He is now co-Chair of the UN Global Observations of Land Cover, which is coordinating a monitoring program for land use change worldwide.
Jay Howard Samek is a research scientist at the Global Observatory for Ecosystem Services, Department of Forestry, Michigan State University. His expertise is in human-environment interactions, social forestry, forest carbon and climate change, and international development. Jay also has more than 20 years of professional experience in geospatial (GIS, Remote Sensing) analysis. His international work started with the US Peace Corps/Philippines (1987 – 89) and has included research and development projects in the following countries: Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Kenya, and Malawi. His work has been funded by NASA, USAID, World Bank, and UNDP GEF.
Prof Cheikh Mbow is the Director of Future Africa. Prior to joining Future Africa, he was the Executive Director of START-International in Washington DC. He served for a decade as Associate Professor on remote sensing-GIS and climate change at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Science Faculty, UCAD. His expertise is land use, disturbances of natural vegetative systems and sustainability of agricultural systems.
Mike Chirwa is a senior scientist with the Forest Research Institute of Malawi. His expertise is in forest measurement and inventory, carbon inventory and REDD+. He has been working in Miombo woodland ecosystems for more than a decade and has supervised several forest carbon inventories for the Government of Malawi. He has also been instrumental is establishing the national forest schema.
Deputy Principal at Malawi College of Forestry and Wildlife. Currently I am PhD candidate, in GOES Lab MSU. I have a masters in Forestry from Stellenbosch University (SA) and a Diploma in Designing Sustainable Landscapes from Helsinki University (Finland). I am a REDD+ Academy graduate (African Chapter). I am a forest manager and researcher who is mostly interested in managing customary forests for the benefit of communities as well as how to link the forests to carbon markets globally.
Tangu Tumeo is a senior forest officer with the Department of Forestry in the Ministry of Forests and Natural Resources. She was the government point of contact for several forest-related international projects, and is the national focal point for Malawi's Forest Landscape Restoration strategy and programs. She holds a graduate degree in Forestry and a Certificate in Forest Carbon Management from Michigan State University.
Dr Daud Jones Kachamba is a Malawian national working as a Program Officer for the African Forest Forum (AFF) and as a Senior Lecturer at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He obtained a PhD (2016) in Forest Inventory from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), MSc degree (2007) in Forest Engineering from Stellenbosch University in South Africa and a BSc degree (2003) in Agriculture from the University of Malawi. Dr Kachamba specializes in forest inventory using both field-based and remote sensing techniques. Dr Kachamba prides himself as the developer of the first forest biomass estimation models for miombo woodlands of Malawi. He is also regarded amongst the leading researchers in the application of unmanned aerial vehicles aka drones in forest inventory. Before joining AFF, Dr Kachamba has worked for the Ministry of Agriculture in Malawi as a Land Resources Conservation Officer.
Dr Judith Kamoto is an Associate Professor of Forest management at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR). She is the Deputy College Director. She is a holder of a PhD in International and Rural Development (2009) from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. Her PhD research work was on Forest governance and rural livelihoods. She holds a Master of Science degree in Tropical Forestry (1999) from Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands. Dr Kamoto is an expert in Forest management with a focus on Community Forestry, Extension and Gender. For her research work for both PhD and master’s degree she used forestry inventory methods and she continues to do so in her research work.
Dr. Alfred Chioza is a lecturer in the Forestry Department, Faculty of Natural Resources, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR). He obtained a PhD specializing in Mycology and Forestry from the Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, Japan. He has a Master of Science degree in Forest Science from Kochi University, Japan which he obtained in 2008. His current research interests are in the areas of mycology (focusing on macrofungi), forestry policy and governance, and participatory forest management.
Francis Kamangadazi, is Head of Academics at Malawi College of Forestry and Wildlife. He graduated with a MSc Degree in Forestry from Michigan State University, USA in 2019. He also holds a certificate in Forest Carbon Science, Policy and Management from the same institution obtained in 2017. His research interests include biodiversity and forest carbon measurement, natural regeneration in Miombo woodlands of Malawi.
