Stephan Woodborne is the senior accelerator mass spectrometry scientist at iThemba LABS. He obtained a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Cape Town in 1996 and took up a post-doctoral fellowship in the radiocarbon dating laboratory at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. He ran the Quaternary Dating Research Unit (QUADRU) at the CSIR for 15 years, and in this time introduced luminescence dating to complement the radiocarbon dating facility, and he also diversified the field of stable light isotope analyses in South Africa. His research interests are in paleoscience, climate change, and ecological processes. He has led a long-running program that assesses climate models using past climate variability in South Africa as a test case. He currently manages the stable light isotope laboratory at iThemba LABS, is associate professor at the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, and is associate professor in the School of Life Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Jennifer Fitchett is an Associate Professor of Physical Geography in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and is a National Research Foundation Y1-rated scientist. Her research is in the discipline of biometeorology, exploring the effects of climate change over long (tens of thousands of years) and short (decadal) timescales on plants, animals and people.

Werner Conradie is the curator of herpetology at the Port Elizabeth Museum (Bayworld), South Africa. He holds a master’s in environmental science and has 10 years of experience studying southern African herpetofauna, with his main research interests focusing on the taxonomy, conservation, and ecology of amphibians and reptiles. He has published numerous scientific papers, and has served on a number of conservation and scientific panels.

Ninda Baptista has a master’s in conservation biology from the University of Lisbon. She joined the Okavango Wilderness Project as an assistant herpetologist and has been involved in several of the surveys. Her primary interest is effective conservation, with a focus on conserving priority unprotected areas in Angola. She has experience in research, environmental education, and environmental impact assessments. Her current work at ISCED-Huíla in Angola involves herpetological surveys, monitoring herpetofauna, and participating in a project for the conservation of the Kumbira escarpment forest in Kwanza Sul. Ninda

Helen Barber-James is a freshwater biologist in the Department of Freshwater Invertebrates at the Albany Museum in South Africa, which houses a collection of more than 1.5 million specimens. She has over 25 years of research experience, which has focused on the biodiversity, systematics, and biogeography of freshwater invertebrates, especially the Ephemeroptera (mayflies). She received a Ph.D. in entomology from Rhodes University in South Africa.

Ina Ferreira is currently a Ph.D. student at the Department of Zoology and Entomology at Rhodes University. Her research focuses on the systematics of southern African Leptophlebiidae (Ephemeroptera), using both morphological and molecular approaches. As an entomologist, her interests lie with freshwater insects, particularly the taxonomy, biodiversity and ecology of mayflies (Ephemeroptera). Ferreira received B.Sc. degrees in zoology and entomology at the University of the Free State, and earned a master’s degree in environmental management at the Centre for Environmental Management from UFS.

Paul Skelton helps coordinate the specialist survey results and publications of the Okavango Wilderness Project. He is emeritus professor and emeritus managing director of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity at Rhodes University. Author of several books on the fishes of the southern African sub-region, Paul has chaired several International Union for Conservation of Nature committees and discovered many new fish species.

David Goyder has catalogued the entire Okavango Wilderness Project plant collection, which is currently housed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. Goyder is director and research leader for Africa and Madagascar at Kew, which has been working in Angola to document the flora and fill the large gap in botanical knowledge of the area.

Francisco Maiato Pedro Gonçalves is a biologist associated with the Herbarium of Lubango at ISCED-Huíla, Angola. His previous experience includes working with renowned botanists in the field and assessing the impact of forest fragmentation on the endemic birds of the Angolan escarpment. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in plant ecology at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His interests include plant diversity, tree population dynamics of the Angolan miombo woodlands, and biodiversity conservation, all of which prepared him well for the Okavango Wilderness Project.

John Mendelsohn has lived all his life in Africa, and has been residing in Namibia for the past 30 years. A passion for research has driven much of his work in zoology, education, livelihoods, geography, and river systems. He has been published in over 70 scientific papers and 28 books. Most of his recent research has been in Namibia, but he now also works extensively in Angola. Over the past 15 years, Mendelsohn has developed a keen interest in the economies of rural areas, seeking to document and understand relationships between natural resources, land uses, land rights, incomes, savings, opportunities, and constraints in different areas. Rivers in the Kalahari Basin are another special interest, particularly the Cunene, Cuvelai, Okavango, and Cuando River systems.

Professor and South African Research Chair on Biodiversity Value & Change at the University of Venda in South Africa, Peter Taylor studies small mammals, such as bats and rodents, for the Okavango Wilderness Project. He is also a core team member at the Centre for Invasion Biology in South Africa.

Professor Dan Parker’s research focuses on mammalian terrestrial ecology. An associate professor at the University of Mpumalanga in South Africa, Parker is also active with the Department of Zoology and Entomology at Rhodes University in South Africa. For the Okavango Wilderness Project, Parker is leading the surveys of the little-known bat populations of the upper catchments in the Angola highlands.

Sina Weier earned an M.Sc. from the Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland. She obtained her Ph.D. at the South African Research Chair on Biodiversity Value and Change at the University of Venda, where she currently works as a postdoctoral fellow. Her research is focused on the habitat use and distribution of insectivorous bat species in Southern Africa under the perspectives of land use and climate change.

Fenton “Woody” Cotterill BSc (Hons), MSc (Tropical Resource Ecology), Ph.D. is a Research associate at Stellenbosch University. He was previously curator of mammals and principal curator of vertebrates at Bulawayo's Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe. His studies of African vertebrates combine analysis of specimens in worldwide museum collections and fieldwork across central Africa, focused on African mammals, including descriptions of seven new species of mammals. His studies also combine evolutionary biology and geomorphology to decipher the evolution of Africa’s landscapes.

Sophie von der Heyden is a molecular ecologist. Her research primarily focuses on the conservation and sustainable utilization of species, particularly in the marine environment. She specializes in employing molecular, ecological, and genomics tools to inform spatial planning, working to understand connectivity patterns, resilience and adaptation of species to ongoing and future change, as well as the impacts of changing marine communities on society.

Jolanda Roux has a Ph.D. in microbiology, specializing in tree pathology and mycology. She has extensive field work experience in many African countries, both in native and planted forests. She worked as a research scientist in academia for nearly 20 years before moving into the corporate world. She has published numerous scientific papers and served on a number of forestry and plant health related panels. For the Okavango Wilderness Project, Roux is assisting in the identification of the numerous macro-fungi present in the Angolan catchment areas.