ORCID Researcher Advisory Council Members

Timothy Adivilah Balag’kutu is a researcher/scholar, policy advocate and governance expert with varied expertise and extensive experience. He is currently Deputy Director of Research for Institute for Natural Resources and Sustainable Development, and Research Fellow with Earth System Governance Network. He was previously an Adjunct Lecturer in Babson College, where he taught courses on Contemporary Africa, Global Politics, International Development, and Environmental Governance. He holds a PhD in Global Governance and Human Security from McCormack School of Policy and Global Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston; two Masters’ degrees from Ohio University in International Affairs and Political Science; and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Swahili from University of Ghana, Legon. He also studied in University of Dar es Salaam on a one-year language proficiency fellowship. His research has appeared in The Extractive Industries and Society; Routledge Handbook of Environmental Conflict and Peacebuilding (2018); A Research Agenda for Global Environmental Politics (Edward Elgar, 2018); Corporate Social Responsibility and Canada’s Role in Africa’s Extractive Sectors (University of Toronto Press, 2019); African Studies Quarterly, as well as forthcoming works in Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, and Routledge Handbook on Natural Resources in Africa.

Sima Berendes has a medical and public health background and more than fifteen years of clinical, research, teaching, and charitable work experience in Germany, France, the US, UK and different low- and middle-income countries. Sima worked, for example, as a study physician and coordinator of HIV/AIDS-related clinical trials at the College of Medicine/ Johns Hopkins University Research project in Malawi; during her work for the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Sima was also involved in an EU-funded project to support the Ministry of Health in Libya to develop its first National HIV/AIDS strategy. In 2019, Sima joined the Population Health Department at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSTHM) as a Research Fellow within the area of digital health and sexual and reproductive health. She has also been contributing to the work of the LSHTM Vaccine Confidence Project relating to the organisation of Covid-19 vaccine-related webinars in various European countries.

Rounak Dubey is a Transfusion Medicine specialist, who is also interested in Medical Research and Education. His academic qualifications include MD and DNB, and he was awarded with a Gold Medal in both. His research work is centered around Clinical Transfusion, Stem Cell Processing, and Immunohematology. He has published various research papers in reputed journals and is also a reviewer for many medical journals. He was selected for the Young Transfusion Researcher Fellowship (Basel, 2019) by International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) and invited as the onsite editor by the International Society of Cell and Gene Therapy (ISCT) for the annual meet (Melbourne, 2019). Previously, he worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the NRI Academy of Medical Sciences, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Lisa Jo Elliott directs the Laboratory for Usability and Interactive Systems at Pennsylvania State University, Erie. The lab provides user experience research and design for a multi-million-dollar product grant for entrepreneurs. Dr. Elliott has also been a co-principal investigator on National Science Fund grants. Most recently, she completed the Engineering Psychology textbook offered on the Open Education Network Library. She is committed to inclusive design through educating researchers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and designers. Dr. Elliott has a PhD in Engineering Psychology from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA. She has industry experience working as a Usability Engineer for a large corporation and for small entrepreneurs. Dr. Elliott is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and sits on the scientific board of the Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics organization.

Andre Leon S. Gradvohl holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of Ceará — Brazil (1997), a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Technological Institute of Aeronautics — Brazil (2000), and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP — 2005) — Brazil. He also holds a Specialist degree in Science Journalism from the Laboratory of Advanced Studies in Journalism/UNICAMP (2010). In 2014, he did a Postdoctoral stage at the Laboratoire d’Informatique de l’Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France. Prof. Gradvohl was head of Computer Science and Computer Engineering undergraduate courses at the University Sao Francisco (2008 — 2010) and head of the Information Systems and Systems Analysis and Development undergraduate courses at the School of Technology/UNICAMP (2012 — 2013). Currently, he is an associate professor at the School of Technology at the UNICAMP, where he teaches Operating Systems, Information Security, and High-Performance Computing (HPC). In addition, he has research experience in Computer Science, specifically in Distributed Computing, HPC, Information Security, and Astroinformatics. He is a Senior Member at IEEE, and he belongs to the High-Performance Intelligent Decision Systems research group.

Lasith Gunawardena is professor in Information Technology at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, and counts 22+ years of Teaching, Research and Administration experience at University Level. He is a fellow of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT (UK), and a senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He currently serves on the advisory board for STEMUp Foundation. He also serves as a Mendeley Advisor and conducts regular workshops in Sri Lanka related to the research publishing process. He has previously held the position of Secretary, Sri Lankan Academy of Young Scientists (SLAYS). He holds a doctorate in Engineering from Shimane University, Japan specializing in Human Computer Interaction. His research interests include Educational Technology, Gesture Recognition, Information System Security, Open Data, Digital Transformation and E-Governance.

Romain Jacob is a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich in the group of Prof. Laurent Vanbever. His current research interests are focused on computer networks, communication protocols, scheduling theory, and statistics applied to experimental design. In 2019, he completed his doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Lothar Thiele, also at ETH. His dissertation is entitled “Leveraging Synchronous Transmissions for the Design of Real-time Wireless Cyber-Physical Systems”. Before joining ETH, he obtained a Master of Science in Engineering of Complex Systems (2015) and Master for Faculty Training for Higher Education (2013) both from École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (now ENS Paris-Saclay). In 2014, he spent a year in UC Berkeley as visiting scholar under the supervision of Prof. Karl Hedrick. He is an Open Science enthusiast and tries to advocate for it whenever he can. When time allows, he is also involved in science communication projects.

Adviti Naik is a postdoctoral researcher with a passion for breast cancer biology, training young researchers, engaging in science outreach and improving research culture. She was awarded a PhD in Systems Biology from the Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen, Germany, funded by the prestigious Marie Curie Initial Training Network European Union grant; and holds a Masters in Genetics and Molecular Cell Biology from the University of Sheffield, UK. Her research has been focused on breast cancer, specifically identifying and investigating molecular targets to treat breast cancer subtypes with poor outcomes. In 2014, she undertook a postdoctoral position at the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), Oman. Since 2018, she has been continuing her postdoctoral stint at the Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI) in Qatar. Through her work, Dr. Naik has authored numerous research papers in top-tier international journals, which have gathered over 300 citations. She also serves as a Review Editor for the journals Frontiers in Oncology and Frontiers in Immunology. Adviti has received several awards for her research excellence and educational merit, including the William Ferdinand Memorial Award (UK) and the National Research Award (Oman). In addition, she has gained experience in the pharma-industry through an industrial placement with AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, UK. Dr. Naik is also the co-editor for her institute’s science outreach newsletters and organizes professional development seminars for early-career researchers. From 2022, she will also serve as an eLife Community Ambassador. 

Rania M Rafik Khalil holds the position of Acting Director of the Research Centre for Irish Studies (RCIS) at The British University in Egypt (BUE). She also holds the position of Research and Postgraduate Studies Coordinator for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at BUE.   She is CELTA certified and is an advanced trained CEA reviewer for accreditation of English language programmes. Dr. Khalil has completed a research consultancy and research project in collaboration with UNHCR and the British Council UK in the MENA region with a budget of 52,000 US$ dollars in 2017. She has since obtained a number of international grants from Culture Ireland, Irish Government and the Embassy of Ireland in Egypt. Her publications include research on assessment, student support in higher education, teaching and learning pedagogy as well as Irish studies, drama and theatre. 

Pradeep Kumar is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutics at Wits’ Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology. He has an experience of over 12 years in academic teaching and research with tissue engineering & regenerative medicine as research areas of interest, molecular pharmaceutics and industrial pharmacy as academic core fields, expertise and specialization in platform-based biomimetic neuro-trauma interventions, and cross cutting competency in molecular simulations and image processing. His research has been published in over 270 peer-reviewed, high-impact publications. He is an inventor on 25 granted patents and has supervised 14 PhD students to completion. Prof. Kumar is a recipient of several prestigious awards including the Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation Award (’21), IAP Young Physician Leader (’21), Wits Health Consortium’s Great Leap Forward Entrepreneurial Academic Award (’21), Global Young Academy Membership (’20), INGSA-Africa Science Advice diploma (’20), Wits’ Friedel Sellschop Research Award (’19), South African Young Academy of Science Membership (’18), ASRT Young African Researcher Award (‘18), Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans (‘18), Claude Leon Foundation Merit Award (‘18), African-German Network of Excellence in Science (AGNES) Junior Researcher Award (‘18), SPER Young Scientist Award 2018, and Wits Innovators Forum’s First-time (’13), Prolific (’14) and International (’16) Inventor Awards.

Niels G. Mede is a science communication researcher at the Department of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ) at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He is holding an M.A. in communication studies (University of Münster, Germany), obtained a B.A. in media management (Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Germany), and has worked as a freelance researcher for NGOs, consumer research companies, European research projects, and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Niels Mede is currently in the final stage of his PhD program in Communication Sciences. His work focuses on public perceptions of science and science communication, populist resentment against scientific expertise, and survey methodology. He also seeks to promote an Open Science culture, encouraging fellow scholars to establish a more transparent, reproducible, and inclusive science. In addition, Niels Mede is a Fellow of the Center of Reproducible Science at the University of Zurich (CRS) and a Young Scholars Representative of the Science Communication Section of the German Communication Association (DGPuK).

Declan O’Loughlin is an Assistant Professor in Electronics Design at Trinity College Dublin specialising in biomedical systems and applications. His research interests include innovative medical devices which exploit the electrical properties of the body such as novel imaging modalities for cancer detection. In particular, his work focuses on identifying and accounting for healthy variances in the population which can affect the accuracy, usability and generalisability of the devices. His achievements have been recognised both nationally and internationally in terms of publications, research projects, awards and collaborations. Dr O’Loughlin promotes open scholarship, and transparent research records for researchers through development of open-source tools and data, national quality assurance processes and as a researcher representative.

P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is the Coordinator for Evaluation at IMU. He has worked as Professor, Associate Dean, Curriculum Committee Chair in several Universities during the last two decades in Nepal and the Caribbean. He has 715 publications in various national and international journals. He has written 12 book chapters in seven books. He is among the top 2% of scientists globally for the years 2019 and 2020 and as a career researcher. He has reviewed over 720 research papers for various journals. He was involved in setting up regional pharmacovigilance centers in Nepal and was a resource person at several national workshops on the subject. He has been involved in teaching rational use of medicines to medical students for over two decades. His areas of research interest are rational use of medicines, pharmacovigilance, small group learning and medical humanities. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

Suzanne Stewart is an academic psychologist who is a champion of Open Research practices. Suzanne earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (United States), and then completed a PhD in Psychology at the University of Manchester (United Kingdom). She held research positions at Manchester before gaining her present research and teaching post at the University of Chester (United Kingdom). Suzanne’s research has investigated social cognition across many areas of Psychology, including clinical, developmental, forensic, and moral. For a number of years, she has been actively involved with local, national, and international Open Research initiatives as well as equality, diversity, and inclusion activities.