Paul Baki is a Professor of Physics and Director of the School of Physical Sciences at the Technical University of Kenya. His special interests are space physics, astronomy, and astrophysics. He is a Fellow of the Kenya National Academy of Sciences (KNAS); a Committee Member of the International Science Council (ISC) Regional Office for Africa; a Member of the International Network of Government Science Advice (INGSA); a Member of Expert Group C (Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities) of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS); and a Member of the African Union Working Group on African Space Policy & Space Strategy. His first degree was in Physics and Mathematics (1992), and he has higher degrees in Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, all from the University of Nairobi.
Babatunde A. Rabiu is a Professor of Physics and at the moment the Director of the African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in English (ARCSSTE-E), Ile-Ife. He is also a member of many professional bodies, including the American Geophysical Union, the African Geospace Society, the Japan Geoscience Union, the Nigerian Institute of Physics, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the US Institute of Navigation. His research interest lies mainly in ionospheric physics, space weather, and solar–terrestrial interactions. He has published many scholarly articles in reputable journals and has been to many academic conferences/workshops.
Christine Amory-Mazaudier is a qualified professional in the fields of computer science (Master), administration (MBA), and physics (Master, PhD, and ‘Thèse d’Etat’). She worked at the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) from 1978 to 2014. She is now a Senior Scientist at the University Pierre and Marie Curie and a Staff Associate at ICTP. Between 1978 and 1989, she conducted research in various fields, including thermodynamics of the upper atmosphere and electrodynamics with incoherent scatter sounder, acoustic waves generated by underground nuclear explosions with HF radar, dynamics of the lower boundary layer of the atmosphere with acoustic sounder, the earth’s magnetic field, and the history of geophysics. Her scientific work has led to 158 publications, comprising 97 scientific papers, 35 proceedings, 28 technical reports, 2 doctoral theses, and a book. She has been in charge of young researchers and has trained Master students (9) and PhD students (34) in various countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the USA. In 1995, she created the IGRGEA (International Group of Research in Geophysics Europe Africa), based upon the practice of sharing. This group has developed geophysics research throughout Africa and Asia since 2005 and leads the creation of African/Asian centers of scientific excellence.
Pierre J. Cilliers is a Senior Researcher at the South African National Space Agency. He obtained his BSc and Hons degrees in Engineering at the University of Pretoria, received his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering at George Washington University, and earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Ohio State University. In 2004, he was appointed as a space physicist at the Space Science Directorate (previously Hermanus Magnetic Observatory) of the South African National Space Agency, where he led the research on ionospheric tomography using GPS. In 2010, he was appointed Adjunct Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at CPUT, where he supervises several postgraduate students on research on space weather applications using CubeSats. In 2013, he was appointed Adjunct Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at UCT, where he supervises several postgraduate students on research on geomagnetically induced currents and other space weather applications. His current research focus areas are ionospheric scintillation, geomagnetically induced currents, and HF radio propagation.
Aziza Bounhir is a professor at Mohamed V University in Rabat at the Physics Department of the Faculty of Science in Rabat. She obtained her Ph.D from Paris Denis-Diderot University (Paris, France) in microelectronics. Her field of expertise was silicon-micromachining microactuators and micromotors. She also obtained a second Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics at Cady Ayyad University in 2009. She obtained expertise in aerosols, astronomical site testing, astro-climatic parameters, and dedicated satellite measurements. Since 2013, her research interest has been space meteorology. She participated in the establishment of the new field of space weather at the University Cady Ayyad through the teaching of master's and Ph.D. students and the exploitation of the data of the equipment dedicated to space weather at the Oukaimeden observatory. She is the national coordinator in Morocco of the ISWI (International Space Weather Initiative).
Claudio Cesaroni is a research scientist at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and adjunct professor at Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Tecnología—Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Since December 2019, he has been the head of the “Upper Atmosphere and Radiopropagation”
unit at INGV. He received his MSc in Physics in 2011 at “Sapienza” University of Roma and his Ph.D. in Geophysics in 2015 at “Alma Mater Studiorium” University of Bologna. From 2015 to 2017, he was a postdoctoral researcher at INGV. He was a visiting scientist at “Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Science” in 2014. He was the scientific supervisor for the realization of the new SWIT system and eSWua web portal for the acquisition, storage, and dissemination of INGV ionospheric data and products. He was awarded as the Young Scientist by International Union of Radio Science (URSI) during the 1st URSI Atlantic Radio Science Conference 2015. Since 2018, he has been responsible for the maintenance of the systems producing data and products to be delivered to the PECASUS consortium for the provision of a space weather service to the International Civil Aviation Organization. His main research topics include space weather; effects of the solar and geomagnetic storm on the ionospheric plasma at low, mid, and high latitude; travelling ionospheric disturbances; lithosphere-ionosphere coupling; and machine learning for ionospheric forecasting.
Patricia Doherty directed the Institute for Scientific Research at Boston College, where she was also a Senior Research Scientist and Principal Investigator. Her research interests focused on the effects of space weather and ionospheric conditions on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and their applications, work sponsored by the FAA, NASA, and the DoD. She actively promoted research and education in the science of navigation in developing countries, organizing workshops and conferences around the world. She was the Scientific Secretary for SCOSTEP, the Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics, an interdisciplinary body of the International Council for Science, and served as the Boston College representative to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and a member of the USRA Board of Trustees, as well as the Chair of International Union of Radio Scientists (URSI) Commission G and the URSI representative to the International Council on GNSS. Pat received numerous awards for her scientific research and outreach activities, including the 2018 AGU Carrington Education and Outreach Award, and was a Fellow of the Institute of Navigation and of the African Geospace Society.
Hassen Ghalila has been a professor of physics at the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Tunis El Manar, Tunisia, since 2009. Before that, he was a professor at the Ecole d’Artchitecture et d’Urbanisme de Tunis (ENAUT), Tunisia, from 1997 to 2009. His B.S. and M.S. studies took place at the Faculty of Sciences of Orsay University of Paris-Saclay, France, and concluded with a Ph.D. in January 1994 in the physics of gases and plasmas section carried out at Polytechnique Paris-Saclay, France. His research began with studies of microwave generation using electronic tubes. Since 1998, his research has focused on plasma analyses and plasma spectroscopy and, more recently, on biophysics and space weather. He is currently the Vice President of the Société Tunisienne d’Optique (STO).
John B. Habarulema completed his MSc (2008) and Ph.D. (2011) in Space Physics (from Rhodes University, South Africa) focusing on analytical and empirical modelling of total electron content (on a regional scale) with the use of satellite and ground-based data. This still remains one of his research interests, in addition to investigations leading to understanding physical mechanisms driving ionospheric dynamics, especially during disturbed conditions; and low-latitude electrodynamics and their potential to launch atmospheric gravity waves (TIDs), which propagate to mid-latitude regions from the equatorial regions. He is the scientific Principal Investigator of the South African Ionosonde Network, which comprises four ionosonde stations. He joined the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2011. Since 2013, he has been a researcher within the Science Research and Applications unit at SANSA, Hermanus. In 2014, he was the first African recipient of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) International Sunanda and Santimay Basu Early-Career Award in Sun-Earth Systems Science for his contributions to ionospheric physics and space weather. In 2016, he was awarded the prestigious AGU Africa Award for Research Excellence in Space Science.
Ayman Mahrous received his BSc and MSc, in Physics in 1992 and 1997, respectively, from Helwan University in Egypt. He got his Ph.D. from Japan (Saitama University) in the field of cosmic rays in 2003. He is currently working as a full professor of space weather and climate at the Institute of Basic and Applied Sciences, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Alexandria, Egypt. In 2012, he was selected as a Vice-President of the African Geophysical Society (2012–2015) and a member of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Space (2016–2018). He is working on new approaches in space weather and climate monitoring/forecasting to evaluate the ionospheric response/regularities to solar energetic particles, geomagnetic storms, and galactic cosmic rays. In addition, he is searching for heavy neutrinos in proton-proton collisions from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The analysis is performed using data from the compact muon solenoid (CMS) experiment (as he is a member of CERN-CMS). He is currently the local coordinator of the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI)-United Nations (UN). He has also been a Guest Reviewer of NASA Heliospheric Program since 2007.
Patrick Mungufeni is a Senior Lecturer and the Acting Head of the Physics Department. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from Mbarara University of Science and Technology in 2017. Before joining Muni University in February 2021, he worked as a postdoc researcher at Chungnum National University, for a period of one year and five months (September 2019–January 2021). Earlier, he worked as a lecturer of Physics at Mbarara University of Science and Technology from 2011 to 2019. He is a Principal Investigator of the research activity funded by the World Academy of Sciences on the “Quantification of Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) and characterization of ionospheric total electron content (TEC) over Uganda”. The first expected outcome of this research work is the realization of an improved TEC model over Uganda through data assimilation, and the second one is the prediction of the deterioration of oil pipelines based on GIC measurements over Uganda. He is also a reviewer for acclaimed international journals including Advances in Space Research, Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Weather, and Acta Geophysicae, among others.
Bruno Nava is an Associate Research Scientist at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy. He is a member of the ICTP Science, Technology and Innovation Unit. He received his M.Sc. degree in physics from the University of Trieste, and earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Graz. In collaboration with his colleagues at ICTP and Graz University, Austria, he has developed the ionosphere electron density model NeQuick. His research interests include three-dimensional and time-dependent ionospheric electron density models, data assimilation into ionospheric
models, and GNSS radio occultation data inversion.
Melessew Nigussie is an Associate Professor and Researcher in the Physics Department at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia. He has a B.Sc. in Physics and an M.Sc. in Space Physics from Bahir Dar University. In 2014, he was awarded a Ph.D. in Space Physics from Bahir Dar University in collaboration with the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Italy.
Joseph Olwendo is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Physics, Pwani University. He received his Bachelor of Science in Physics at the University of Nairobi in 2005, completed his Master of Science studies in Physics at the University of Nairobi in 2008, and earned his Ph.D. at Pwani University in 2014. He is the Recipient of the AT-RASC 2015 Young Scientist Award, and the American Geophysical Union Winner of the 2016 Basu Early Career Award in Sun Earth Science. He is also a Member of the Institute of Navigation, a Member of the African Geophysical Union (AGU), and a Federations of Associate Scheme member at the International Centre of Theoretical Physics. His research interests include space physics, particularly atmospheric sciences and ionosphere and magnetospheric physics; lower atmospheric forcings and ionospheric total electron content; scintillations studies; and validation of ionospheric models with GNSS derived total electron content to enhance application in navigation and precise positioning applications.
Patrick Sibanda currently works at the Kwame Nkrumah University. He does research in space physics. He is an experienced educator and researcher with a demonstrated history of working in higher education. He is skilled in mathematical modeling and programming with Python and Fortran. With a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) focused in Space Physics from Rhodes University, he has strong research experience and skills; he is well versed in coordinating intricate research projects, encompassing tasks such as developing research plans, implementing methodologies, analyzing test parameters, writing reports, and presenting research findings; and he has led his research teams.
Jean Uwamahoro obtained a BSc. Degree in Physics and Chemistry with Education in 2004 from the former Kigali Institute of Education (KIE), now University of Rwanda, College of Education (UR-CE); a BSc honors degree in Astrophysics and Space Science from the University of Cape Town, 2006; and an MSc (2009) and PhD (2012) in Space Physics from Rhodes University, South Africa. He has been a UR academic staff and researcher since 2005 and currently has the rank of Professor of Physics. He also holds an administrative position as the Deputy Director of the African Centre of Excellence for Innovative Teaching and Learning Mathematics and Science (ACEITLMS), hosted by UR-CE. He is a member of the Rwanda Academy of Science (RAS); member of the Rwanda Astrophysics, Space and Climate Science Research Group (RASCSRG); member of the African Geophysical Society (AGS); and member of the Variability of the Sun and its Terrestrial Impact (VarSITI) group. At the moment, he is also the country (Rwanda) coordinator of the International Space Weather (ISWI) initiative.
