Dr Jane Olwoch has been appointed as SASSCAL’s Executive Director with effect from 1 February 2017. Dr Olwoch formally succeeds Dr Henry Mwima as well as Dr Yonah Seleti who had been acting in the position during the interim period.
Dr Olwoch is a climate change impact specialist with a background in biology and vector ecology. She holds a PhD from the University of Pretoria, a MSc from the Medical University of Southern Africa, a BSc from Makerere University as well as a MBA from the Netherlands Business School. A South African of Rwandan decent, her previous employment was with the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) in the position of Managing Director: Earth Observation. Amongst others, she was instrumental in facilitating regional and international collaboration with other space agencies and earth observation institutions in data access, sharing and application development.
Prior to joining SANSA, she was the coordinator of Environmental Science undergraduate degree programme and the manager of the postgraduate degree programme in Environment and Society at the University of Pretoria. She has over 20 years’ experience in training in higher institutions of learning and 15 years’ experience in research on the impact of climate change on natural and societal systems including their adaptation with particular attention on climate change and vector-borne diseases.
She has proven research and training experience and skills demonstrated by several publications in peer reviewed national and international journals. She has supervised to completion over 30 Honours, Masters and PhD students. She holds a prestigious Laureate Award from TuksAlumni, the highest award an alumnus of the University of Pretoria can receive from fellow alumni. Dr. Olwoch currently serves as a South African member on SASSCAL’s Scientific Advisory Committee.
