Information professional, graduate library and information science at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, with postgraduate studies in management of non-governmental organizations (Open University, UK). Has 19 years of professional experience in the field of development, including directing and leading programs and projects, with special emphasis on information systems and knowledge management. He chairs the Board of Directors of the Regional Andean Paramo, a member of the Board of Mountain Forum, the International Mountain Society and RAMP Project, Peru. He is the leader for the Andes Challenge Program on Water and Food, the leader in charge of the Mountain Forum and a member of the Steering Committee of the Mountain Partnership Consortium. It is associated with the Permanent Seminar on Agricultural Research (SEPIA), the Information Architecture Institute (IAI) and the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) group. He has been chairman of the Board of ASOCAM and board member of the Red Cientifica Peruana.

Amy Sullivan, the Limpopo Basin Leader, has over 10 years’ experience in water, rural livelihoods and gender research in western and southern Africa. Her previous experience with the Challenge Program for Water and Food includes the Limpopo Basin Focal Project and the Transboundary Water Governance Project in Phase I.  Amy has has degrees in Interdisciplinary Ecology and Farming Systems Research and Extension from the University of Florida in the US.

Kim Geheb is a human geographer with fourteen years of experience implementing, managing and leading natural resources management research in the developing world. He holds a D.Phil from the University of Sussex in the UK. His principal interests lie in the development of research-based solutions to complex social and environment problems in the developing world, and how such innovations can be transferred into on-the-ground impact; third world political ecologies; and community-based natural resources management. His work focus has crossed river basins and catchments, water resources, fisheries and protected areas in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the UK. Kim Geheb holds fellowships with the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Dr Tilahun Amede is a systems agronomist, a joint appointee between the International Water Management Institute and the International Livestock Research Institute, and currently working as the Nile Basin Leader for the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food. Before the current position, he worked as a Senior Research Fellow at CIAT working on Integrated Watershed Management in the African highlands and as an Assistant Professor in Hawassa University in Ethiopia. Tilahun has published more than 40 papers in peer reviewed journals.

Olufunke Cofie has many years of progressive professional experience in natural resources management in West Africa: 10 years teaching experience in the university in Nigeria and Ghana; 10 years Post-Doctoral research experience in International Agricultural Research Centers (IITA and IWMI). She is an innovative and result-oriented researcher, project manager, coordinator and trainer; capable of multi-tasking and well organized. She has high personal integrity and has worked effectively with a broad range of actors irrespective of socio-cultural differences. She is articulate, passionate, flexible and facilitative team-builder. She has  published many scientific articles in diverse outlets.

My main research interest concerns the dynamics of freshwater and agro-ecosystem services, and how this links to poverty alleviation, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Besides my involvement in the CPWF resilience TWG I work on a postdoc project entitled “Sahel in transition: can the re-greening help smallholders escape persistent poverty?” sharing my time between CIRAD in Montpellier, France, and Stockholm Resilience Center (SRC), in Sweden. At SRC I also coordinate an international research collaboration project about the Sahelian re-greening. I have a phD in Natural Resources management, extensive experience of resilience inspired field research in Africa, and a true passion for inter-disciplinary science.

Simon Cook is a specialist in the analysis of food and water systems that underpin agricultural development. Currently he is the Director of the CGIAR program CRP5. Prior to this, he led the Basin Focal Projects and the Global Drivers TWG for the CPWF.

He believes strongly in the role of science to support sustainable development and contests the view of agriculture as a ‘sunset activity’, preferring to consider it a ‘sleeping giant’ – waiting to be stimulated to solve global-scale demands for food, energy and income security.

More information here.

Charlotte MacAlister is a Hydrologist and Project Leader within the International Water Management Institute’s (IWMI) East Africa and Nile Basin Regional Office. Charlotte’s primary research interests are hydrological and water resource modeling, the quantification of ungauged systems (climate and hydrology), and water resource management for sustainable development. She leads the Nile Basin Development Challenge, Project 4, which is concerned with modeling the hydrological, productivity and socioeconomic impacts of changes in water resource management in the Blue Nile Basin, including rainfed agriculture and large scale water resource development. This project utilizes remote sensing; global climate models; ‘traditional’ hydrometry and field survey for biophysical and socioeconomic factors; spatial and numerical modeling. Charlotte is the co-founder of the Spatial Analysis and Modeling – Topic Working Group. She has a BSc from Manchester Metropolitan University and an MSc and PhD from Newcastle University. Now based in East Africa, she previously spent 8 years working in the water and development sector in South East Asia for organizations including the Mekong River Commission and UNDP. She has significant project management experience working with a range of partners from government, civil society, academia and the NGO community, with a focus on demand driven research and development.