Alice and Ei were awarded their PhD and MSc respectively. Both defended successfully their theses in July 2019. Cogratulations!!

Alice undertook an extensive household survey in Lilongwe, Malawi seeking to identify dietary patterns and their change over the past 10 years. With the help of a local 6-person team she surveyed approximately 700 households in different parts of the city to obtain a representative understanding of these phenomena. This survey was part of a long-term project funded by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) collecting similar datasets from other African cities.

Denise visited Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia to obtain a deeper understanding of the operational activities of the different Solid Waste Management stages in the city. She accompanied supervisors of the local waste collection company to observe their operational procedures and waste picking activities. She visited waste pickers storages and used action cameras to record the activities of informal waste pickers in order to explore related social impacts. Additionally, she conducted a workshop with representatives of the municipality, private cleansing company and NGOs to validate a system dynamic model of the Solid Waste Management system in Santa Cruz,
 
Robert visited the provinces of the Western Cape and the Gauteng in South Africa to interview experts and conduct surveys with local farmers about the current role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the country’s food system. He conducted 86 surveys with smallholder farmers located in 6 urban and peri-urban areas in the townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg to understand the barriers and challenges of ICT adoption, as well as the desirable characteristics of ICT tools. He complemented this knowledge with interviews with experts from NGOs, ICT companies and the food industry to understand more broadly these issues in South Africa.
 
Rodo visited the three islands Nargana, Soledad Miria, and Carti Sugdub in the Guna Yala region of Paname. He conducted household surveys to capture the perspective of the local Guanas communities, in order to identify what are their main development concerns. Questionnaires captured socioeconomic activities, perceived value from ecosystem services, traditional values, and ranked through a Discreet Choice Experiment (DCE) the key development challenges. He conducted approximately 240 questionnaires across the three islands to conduct a conjoint analysis that will help identify the key development challenges in Guna Yala.
 
Vinamra visited multiple logging sites in in Sarawak, Malaysia, to understand the impact of logging on local communities. Initially he visited Iban communities in Anap Muput Forest Management Unit to understand the effects of past and current commercial logging practices in the area. In particular he carried out 21 household interviews in 7 villages located in the Muput cluster. Subsequently he visited the Kapit Forest Management Unit (149,756 ha), whose southern part is located inside Heart of Borneo (HoB) project area, and met each of the village chiefs of the sixteen settlements at Mujong-Melinau FMU (44,300 ha). He conducted multiple expert interviews with officials from the Forest Department, Sarawak Forestry Corporation and different logging companies, and also attended the Forest Management Certification and Forest Management Unit Readiness Assessment Workshop organised by Sarawak Forestry Corporation in Sibu.

Alex Gasparatos visited Bali with six undergraduate students from the University of Tokyo. The team undertook fieldwork for two student-led research projects as part of the Sustainability cluster of the Global Leadership Education Program - Global Education for Innovation and Leadership (GLP-GEFIL).
 
The two projects explored issues related to youth involvement in agriculture, and waste generation and management in the island. The students collected information from different areas around Bali including farms, waste management facilities, beaches and research institutions. They conducted numerous interviews with farmers, and stakeholders from the waste, tourism and agriculture sector. During this research the team worked closely with the local think-and-do tank, su-re.co.

Merle, Nikole and Spencer graduated on 25 March. All of them defended successfully their PhD and MSc theses in January 2019. Congratulations!