Meet the driving forces of the Horizons Institute: research managers, consultants, academics, business leaders, and mentors. Our International Advisory Board is dedicated to research, culture change and responding to global challenges collaboratively, beyond disciplinary boundaries.
Charlotte Bonner-Evans
Charlotte has completed postgraduate certificates in Counselling and Higher Education Leadership and Management. They combine knowledge and practice, as an ILM practicing coach and mentor, with a desire for supporting others to develop and grow through mentoring, leadership, and training. An experienced and qualified people and project manager (PRINCE2 practitioner and MInstLM), Charlotte has worked in the private sector, further and higher education. They have managed a number of multi-million-pound research projects in higher education, developing a passion for supporting great research and great researchers.
Charlotte is a 2022 co-award winner of the EMCC Global Mentoring Award for the Mentoring Programme they manage as part of the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network.
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Dr Philip Cola
Philip holds appointments as an Associate Professor of Management and as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. He teaches qualitative and quantitative research methods, leadership, action research, and research dissemination. He is also the Associate Director of Academic Affairs for the Doctor of Management Programs at Weatherhead as well as the Director of the Regulatory Knowledge and Support component of the CWRU Clinical Translational Science Award.
He has given numerous presentations and lectures locally and nationally on the responsible conduct of research, human subject protections, grants administration and workforce development in the translational sciences, including sessions at the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health. He has authored numerous impactful publications on the intersection of management and medicine, psychology, psychiatry and research management. He has been a member of the Society for Research Administration (SRA) for 20 years.
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Dr Helen Coskeran
Helen is a research development manager at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. She has a background in international project and research management in the academic, non-profit and private sectors, most recently as programme manager of GCRF programme AFRICAP at the University of Leeds.
AFRICAP was a £9-million interdisciplinary programme aiming to make agriculture and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa more climate-resilient. Within this, Helen led on all capacity-strengthening and knowledge exchange activities. This included co-leading a collaboration with research management colleagues in South Africa, Zambia, Botswana and other UK universities on project management skills development.
Dr William Narteh Gblerkpor
William is an archaeologist, cultural heritage, and museum studies expert, and is a Senior Archaeology and Heritage Studies Lecturer at the University of Ghana. He is the founding Director and Curator of Shai Hills Museum of Natural and Cultural Heritage.
William holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Philosophy in Archaeology from the University of Ghana. His research and writing explore the dynamic role of material culture and landscapes in the historical and contemporary construction and maintenance of social identities and livelihoods in West Africa. He is interested in the archaeology of identities, community development; cultural resource management; digital archaeology; environmental archaeology; climate change and biodiversity heritage conservation, landscape archaeology, and conservation photography.
He is the Principal Investigator of two archaeological projects in Ghana: the Shai Hills Archaeological Research Project and the Krobo Mountain Archaeological Project. He coordinates the West Africa Biocultural Heritage Conservation Program and directs the WUN’s Climate Change, Migration, and the Biocultural Heritage of West Africa, hosted by the University of Ghana.
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Dr Heide Hackmann
Heide is Director of Future Africa at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. She holds an MPhil in Contemporary Social Theory from the University of Cambridge in the UK and a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Heide’s career includes more than 20 years of international experience in science and technology policy, global science strategy and systems development, and international science advice and diplomacy. Before joining the University of Pretoria she served as the founding CEO of the International Science Council in Paris (2018–2022), and as Executive Director of the Council’s two predecessor organizations: the International Council for Science (2015–2018) and the International Social Science Council (2007–2015).
Heide continues to serve as an advisor to the United Nations and remains active on the boards of numerous international scientific organisations and initiatives. She is a Fellow of the International Science Council, a member of the Council’s Global Sustainability Commission and most recently served as a member of the international jury of the inaugural Frontiers Planet Prize.
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Professor Doreen Kaura
Doreen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nursing and Midwifery at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Her research focuses on the informational continuity and care coordination, particularly in the areas of women’s health, maternal and neonatal care within primary healthcare settings. Her work involves supervising PhD and masters’ students, research on empowering healthcare professionals with digital health, engaging with women on use of technology to improve their healthcare while enabling caregivers to understand the health information needs of women.
Doreen obtained her PhD in Informatics, is engaged in National and International collaborative research, and has authored and co-authored with her students in several international publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. She is also a mentor and educator, inspiring and coaching the next generation of health innovators.
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Eva Kagiri-Kalanz
Eva Kagiri Kalanzi is an international development expert and currently working as the Head of Partnerships and Communities at Scientia Scripta. She has extensive experience implementing programmes on sustainable development and higher education cooperation. Her work has included programmes on research capacity development; science, technology and innovation policy; and innovation and skills development in climate change and energy.
Eva’s interests in higher education include fostering equitable partnerships in South–North relationships. Previously, she was Head of Programmes at the Association of Research Managers and Administrators UK, working on strengthening Africa–UK research cooperation and research management ecosystems in Africa.
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Rosanna Lewis
Rosanna is an advocate for arts and culture responding to global challenges, including climate action. Rosanna is a Senior Relationship Manager at the British Council, where she has worked for nearly ten years.
Rosanne is the author of The Missing Pillar: Culture’s contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Rosanna is also Board Member of IMPACT – Arts and Culture for Conflict Transformation, Artists with Elbows, and Horizons Institute. In her spare time, she is a semi-professional singer.
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Dr Elizabeth Mkandawire
Elizabeth is the current the Network and Research Manager for FSNet-Africa. She has a PhD in Rural Development Planning, and her research and publications have focused on integrating gender in nutrition policy, and especially on men’s involvement in maternal and child health.
Over the past several years, Elizabeth has been involved in numerous food security and nutrition-related activities, including research work for the Feed the Future Food Security Policy Innovation Lab at the University of Pretoria. As part of the Lab, she led the gender and nutrition case study conducted in Lilongwe, Blantyre, and Ntcheu, Malawi, where she researched men’s involvement in maternal and child nutrition. She has also contributed to the CAADP process in several African countries. She played a central role in preparing a scoping report for Malawi for the International Food Policy Research Institute Compact 2025 initiative.
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Aamer Naeem OBE
Aamer qualified with first class honours as a pharmacist in 1992 and gained a Masters in Business Administration with distinction in 2007. He is the Director of Innov8 Creative Solutions Ltd, a consultancy providing strategic and operational support to a range of organisations as well as delivering Leadership Development Programmes across public, private and voluntary sectors. He has sat as a fitness to practice committee member of the General Pharmaceutical Council of Great Britain and the General Teaching Council for England. He is the co-author of ‘The Good Leadership Book’, was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List in 2019 and is listed in the Green Park BAME 100 Business Leaders directory 2019 as ‘Board Ready’ members of the community.
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Lorna Wilson
Lorna is Director of Research Development and Operations at Durham University, and Chair-Elect of the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA). Lorna is responsible for overseeing research operations (pre, contracting and post-award), research development, research culture, and strategic projects in her day to day role. She has previously held different roles in research management, with her speciality being research development and specifically the development of complex, interdisciplinary collaborations and initiatives.
She was a member of UKRI’s Research Organisation Consultation Group, ROCG (2019–2023), and is co-founder and previous co-chair of Women@DU.
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Isobel Wilson-Cleary
Isobel is a manager and strategist specialising in communications and stakeholder engagement. She is currently Head of Communications and Engagement at the University of Birmingham with a focus on business engagement and research impact. She previously managed the Developmental Leadership Program – an international research initiative exploring the role of leadership and political processes in social change and has more than a decade of experience in designing, delivering and evaluating communications strategies and plans with and for a range of organizations and networks, particularly on issues such as education, civil society and state-citizen relations, and youth voice. Isobel is a non-executive director at We Don’t Settle and holds an MA in Cultural Heritage and International Development.
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