MACHAKOS UNIVERSITY FEATURED RESEARCHER – DECEMBER 2022

Dr. Mercy Ndalila is a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Environment at Machakos University. She holds a PhD in Fire Ecology at the University of Tasmania, Australia and a Joint MSc. in Geo-information Science from two European universities.

At Machakos University, she is working on a trans-disciplinary project that involves researching on wildfire regimes in Mt Kenya forest. She is specifically using geospatial tools to map fire severity patterns from recent fires, analyze historical fire weather, and compare with projected weather for Mt Kenya region. The aim is to understand whether climate change has an effect on the frequency of wildfires.

Mercy is also investigating the level of community preparedness for wildfires so that the community can build their resilience to impacts of climate change. The implication of her research is better fire preparedness by government agencies and other stakeholders, as well as enhanced capacity of local researchers in fire research, which will hopefully catalyze more research into wildfires.