Cambridge-Africa

Researchers' Database

Researchers from across the University of Cambridge and its affiliated institutes are engaging with the initiatives of the Cambridge-Africa Programme by carrying out collaborative research with African colleagues, and/or supporting African fellows.

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Photograph:

Dr Annettee Nakimuli, Makerere University and MUII PhD Fellow, and her Cambridge co-supervisor Professor Ashley Moffett, Department of Pathology.

 

 

 

In order to encourage new collaborations with African researchers and to support African PhD students and post-doctoral fellows, we have built (and are continuously expanding) a database of current and potential Cambridge collaborators and their expertise. The Cambridge researchers listed are either already engaging with, or have indicated their interest in being matched to Africans who have similar research interests. Cambridge researchers who would like to get involved do not need to have a pre-prepared project available, or existing African links, in order to be included in the database. If you would like your details to be included, please complete the (short and painless) registration form.

Note to African researchers searching for a Cambridge collaborator: Please be aware that any enquiries about potential collaboration with a Cambridge researcher should to be directed to one of the Cambridge-Africa team or enquiries@cambridge-africa.cam.ac.uk in the first instance. They will then put you in touch with the Cambridge researcher if there is an appropriate match in the research interests. Thanks for your cooperation.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Dr Alicja Dabrowska (Microbiology) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Research Associate at the Department of Physics and the Department of Veterinary Medicine

Research Interests:

Microbiology Drinking water testing in LMIC Point-of-care testing for UTIs Antimicrobial resistance Natural products

Prof John Danesh (Epidemiology Determinants Of Cardiovascular Disease In Africa) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine, and Head of Dept of Public Health and Primary Care
www.phpc.cam.ac.uk/MEU

Research Interests:

I lead a research group of over 40 staff and students investigating the genetic, biochemical and lifestyle determinants of cardiovascular disease in large-scale epidemiological studies.

Publications:
(1) The Emerging Risk Factors collaboration. C-reactive protein concentration and risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and mortality: an individual participant meta-analysis. Lancet 2010;375(9709):132-40

(2) The Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration. Major Lipids, Apolipoproteins, and Risk of Vascular Disease. JAMA 2009;302(18):1993-2000

(3)The Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration. Lipoprotein(a) Concentration and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke, and Nonvascular Mortality. JAMA 2009;302(4):412-423

Dr Kingsley Daraojimba (archaeological investigation of Igboland, eastern Nigeria) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Potdoctoral Fellow, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Research Interests:

My research interests lie in West African archaeology and ethnohistory; palynology and archaeobotany. I study preserved pollen and spores (pteridophyte and fungal) within and outside archaeological contexts to reconstruct the palaeoenvironment of the tropics and understand human-environment interactions, landscape evolution and plants exploited in the past. I also have an interest in public/community archaeology.

Publications:
Daraojimba, K.C and Luz, C.F.P. 2023. Botanical and geographical origins of some commercial Apis mellifera var. adansonii honeys from Nigeria. Grana. 62 (2): 116-132. DOI: 10.1080/00173134.2023.2181099.

Daraojimba, K.C, Babalola, A., Brittain, M., Adeyemo, E., Champion, L., Smith-Shaw, P.J and Sulas, F. 2022. Expanding Space and Time at Igbo-Ukwu: Insights from Recent Fieldwork. African Archaeological Review 39: 437–459.

Abdulmalik, A.A and Daraojimba, K.C. 2022. Textile Weaving (Aṣọ-Òkè) at Ologbin-Adewole, Northern Yorubaland, Nigeria. Textile- Cloth and Culture. DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2022.2141024

Dr Lida Derevnina (Plant pathogen interactions) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Head of Group, Crop Science Centre
www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/groups/crop-pathog…

Research Interests:

My lab studies the two-way communication that exists between plant parasitic nematodes and the plant hosts they infect. We aim to decipher the molecular mechanisms that underpin pathogen virulence and host resistance/susceptibility to develop targeted control measures to help mitigate the impact imparted by these devastating parasites.

Publications:
The battle within: how pathogen effectors suppress NLR-mediated immunity. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbi.2023.102396

Resurrection of plant disease resistance proteins via helper NLR bioengineering. 2023. 10.1126/sciadv.adg3861

Plant pathogens convergently evolved to counteract redundant nodes of an NLR immune receptor network. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001136

Dr Jennifer Dickens (Respiratory medicine (especially interstitial lung disease) projects) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Senior research associate, University of Cambridge

Research Interests:

Modelling familial ILDs using alveolar organdie models to understand what triggers interstitial lung disease. Clinical care of individuals with heritable forms of ILD.

Publications:
PMID: 37693487

PMID: 34049951

PMID: 29323786

Dr Kanta Dihal (Global AI Narratives Sub-Saharan Africa Workshop (Alborada-funded)) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Research Associate, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge
www.ainarratives.com

Research Interests:

As the Principal Investigator of the Global AI Narratives project I explore how fictional and nonfictional stories shape the development and public understanding of artificial intelligence. My work intersects the fields of science communication, literature and science, and science fiction.

Publications:
AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking About Intelligent Machines (Oxford University Press, 2020)

'Hopes and fears for intelligent machines in fiction and reality' (Nature Machine Intelligence, February 2019)

Ancient dreams of intelligent machines' (Nature, July 2018)

Dr Lorna Dillon (Embroidery in Africa, textiles in Africa, contemporary art, restitution issues) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Isaac Newton Trust Fellow and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Cambridge

Research Interests:

I'm currently working on Latin American activist art. My case study is feminist embroidery. I'm also interested in activist art and textile art broadly.

Publications:
Dillon, Lorna. 2022. “Repairing the Fabric of Society through Needlework” Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture. 4, 4: 74-80.  

Dillon, Lorna. 2022. “Embroidery in Abya Yala” Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture. 4, 4: 119-128.

Dr Caterina Ducati (Nano Materials, Energy Storage and Water Purification) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Reader in Nanomaterials, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge
www-hrem.msm.cam.ac.uk/people/ducati

Research Interests:

Cate's current research interests include the structural and electronic characterisation of nanostructured metal oxides and semiconductors. In particular she is studying the growth and properties of nanostructured materials used in electrochemical and photoelectrochemical cells (batteries for energy storage and solar cells for energy harvesting), as well as photocatalytic systems for air and water purification.

Current African links: I collaborate with Mr Henry Agbe, Lecturer at the All Nations University College (ANUC), Koforidua, Ghana, through a 1-year project funded by the Alborada Research Fund (2013), entitled "The use of photocatalytic metal oxide nanoparticles for degrading oil spill- an innovative approach in environmental remediation".

Publications:
Saberi Moghaddam, R., Huettner, S., Vaynzof, Y., Ducati, C., Divitini, G., Lohwasser, R. H., . . . Friend, R. H. (2013). Polymer crystallization as a tool to pattern hybrid nanostructures: growth of 12 nm ZnO arrays in poly(3-hexylthiophene).. Nano Lett, 13(9), 4499-4504. doi:10.1021/nl4024275

Guldin, S., Kohn, P., Stefik, M., Song, J., Divitini, G., Ecarla, F., . . . Steiner, U. (2013). Self-cleaning antireflective optical coatings.. Nano Lett, 13(11), 5329-5335. doi:10.1021/nl402832u

Ogata, K., Salager, E., Kerr, C. J., Fraser, A. E., Ducati, C., Morris, A. J., . . . Grey, C. P. (2014). Revealing lithium-silicide phase transformations in nano-structured silicon-based lithium ion batteries via in situ NMR spectroscopy.. Nat Commun, 5, 3217. doi:10.1038/ncomms4217

Dr Maciej Dunajski (Differential Geometry, Integrable Systems, General Relativity, Solitons) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Lecturer Department of Mathematics University of Cambridge
www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/md327

Research Interests:

Differential Geometry, Integrable Systems, General Relativity, Solitons

Publications:
Solitons, Instantons, and Twistors, (Oxford University Press 2009, ISBN 9780198570639 )

Twistor theory at fifty: from contour integrals to twistor strings', https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2017.0530 (with Michael Atiyah and Lionel Mason)

On the quadratic invariant of binary sextics https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305004116000542 (with Roger Penrose)

Dr Maria Duque (Intestinal nematodes parasites) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Postdoctoral Fellow, Sanger Institute

Research Interests:

Maria's research interests include infectious diseases, host-pathogen interaction and immunology. These interests led her to study tuberculosis, Chagas disease and trichuriasis. Trichuriasis is a disease caused by infection with whipworms. Infection occurs via ingestion of whipworm eggs which, upon arrival to the gut, hatch and liberate larvae that burrows through the intestinal epithelium. Maria's research goal is to more fully understand the initial stages of the epithelia infection by the larvae, a crucial step that determines whether the worms are expelled or remain in the gut and cause chronic disease.

Publications:
Mottram L, Speak AO, Selek RM, Cambridge EL, McIntyre Z, Kane L, Mukhopadhyay S, Grove C, Colin A, Duque-Correa MA, Forbester J, Pham N. TA, Hale C, Vasilliou GS, Arends MJ, Wren BW, Dougan G, and Clare S. 2016. Infection susceptibility in gastric intrinsic factor (Vitamin B12) defective mice is subject to maternal influences. MBio. 2016 Jun 21;7(3). pii: e00830-16. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00830-16.

Blohmke CJ, Darton TC, Jones C, Suarez NM, Waddington CS, Angus B, Zhou L, Hill J, Clare S, Kane L, Mukhopadhyay S, Schreiber F, Duque-Correa MA, Wright JC, Roumeliotis TI, Yu L, Choudhary JS, Mejias A, Ramilo O, Shanyinde M, Sztein MB, Kingsley RA, Lockhart S, Levine MM, Lynn DJ, Dougan G, Pollard, AJ. 2016. Interferon-driven alterations of the host's amino acid metabolism in the pathogenesis of typhoid fever. J Exp Med. May 23. pii: jem.20151025. PMID: 27217537.

Duque-Correa MA, Kühl A, Rodriguez PC, Zedler U, Schommer-Leitner S, Rao M, Weiner 3rd J, Hurwitz R, Qualls JE, Kosmiadi GA, Murray PJ, Kaufmann SHE and Reece ST. 2014. Macrophage arginase-1 controls bacterial growth and pathology in hypoxic tuberculosis granulomas. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 111(38):E4024-32. PMID: 25201986.

Dr Robbie Duschinsky (Child and family mental health, public health & primary care) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Senior University Lecturer in Social Sciences, Primary Care Unit, School of Clinical Medicine
www.phpc.cam.ac.uk/people/pcu-group/pcu-senior-aca…

Research Interests:

Dr Robbie Duschinsky is a social scientist based in the Primary Care Unit in the School of Clinical Medicine. Robbie’s research interests primarily concern child and family mental health, the integration of health and social care, and the use of qualitative methods within primary care research. He also has interests in the sociology of gender and of caring activities, in sociological theory, and in psychological interventions.​

 

Dr Jonas Dutra Albarnaz (Biology of poxvirus infections and disease) More Info

Position & Affiliation:
Research Associate - Cambridge Institute for Medical Research

Research Interests:

virus-host interactions; host susceptibility to virus infections and disease; host species barriers to virus infections

Publications:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-021-01004-9

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.04.042

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coviro.2022.101291