Tristan McCowan is Professor of International Education at the Institute of Education, University College London. His work focuses on higher education and international development, particularly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, including issues of access, quality, innovation and impact. His latest book is Higher Education for and beyond the Sustainable Development Goals (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and he is editor of Compare – a Journal of International and Comparative Education. He was the Principal Investigator for the Transforming Universities for a Changing Climate research project and is currently the Principal Investigator for this project. 

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Research Gate 

​Dr. Benjamin Matthew Alcott is an Associate Professor at the UCL Institute of Education. His research focuses primarily on global education policy, especially in South Asia and East Africa. Dr Alcott’s methodological expertise lies in econometrics, mixed methods, and longitudinal research designs. He received his PhD in Higher Education Policy from the University of Michigan. Previously, Dr Alcott has held academic positions at the University of Cambridge and was a Senior Research Officer at UNESCO.

Professor Moses Oketch is Head of the Department of Education, Practice and Society at UCL’s Institute of Education, specialising in International Education Policy and Development. His research critically examines the relationship between human capital theory and policy implementation, arguing that the theory remains ineffective without practical, functioning policies. His interests span education economics, policy analysis, and impact evaluation, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. He has held academic positions at Vanderbilt University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Hiroshima University. He also served as Senior Research Fellow at FCDO while on secondment from UCL. As a Senior Research Scientist and Director of Research at APHRC, he supported research capacity building across Africa, mentoring early-career researchers and co-authoring studies. His work bridges academic research, policy engagement, and international development.

Dr Jackline Nyerere is a Senior Lecturer of Educational Leadership and  Policy at Kenyatta University, Kenya. Her focus is on internationalisation of education, open and flexible learning, and sustainability.  Her recent studies include academic student mobility in Africa, the role of higher education in rural and urban development, and the role of higher education in building a sustainable African Society. She Co-Chairs the Education for Sustainable Development in Africa – Next Generation Research (ESDA-NGR) Network.

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​Evalyne is a development researcher with over four years’ experience in policy-oriented research, project coordination, and data analysis across education, social protection, and governance. She is skilled in designing and implementing mixed-methods research, managing multi-stakeholder projects, and translating evidence into actionable policy recommendations. Passionate about leveraging research for equitable and sustainable development, Evalyne focuses on bridging the gap between policy and practice to advance shared prosperity, climate resilience, and inclusive growth.

Dr Almas Fortunatus Mazigo is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE). He teaches applied ethics, development studies, and development evaluation. His research focuses on community-led transformative social innovations that address urgent environmental and social challenges. He has examined the cultural and moral dimensions of climate change, particularly how local values and practices shape community resilience. Dr. Mazigo has led and co-led projects on climate governance, coastal livelihoods, small-scale fisheries, and the blue economy, while supporting coral reef and mangrove restoration and youth-led climate awareness campaigns in Tanzania. At the heart of his work is the promotion of community–university partnerships that connect academic research with grassroots climate action. Using participatory, culturally rooted methods, he co-designs adaptation strategies with local communities to strengthen both resilience and environmental stewardship. His scholarship contributes to the Transforming Universities for a Changing Climate (Climate-U) initiative and wider debates on ethics, governance, and sustainability in the Global South.

Dr Teodor Zidaru's work focuses on interpersonal and institutional forms of trust and mistrust in the context of diverse competitive and collaborative arrangements and policy initiatives for pandemic governance, financial inclusion, electoral politics, and digital mental health care. He conducted over two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Kenya and authored Speaking of trust: Religion and mutual aid in Southwest Kenya (Zed Books/Bloomsbury, 2025).

​Emmanuel Lukumay is a young and emerging evaluator with a strong enthusiasm for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and data analysis. He has been engaged in projects on climate services assessments, evaluation of board performance, household surveys, and livelihoods research in Tanzania, applying tools such as STATA, SPSS, and Excel to generate insights that support community resilience and sustainable development. Emmanuel is passionate about building his expertise in evaluation to contribute to evidence-based decision-making in climate and development initiatives.