"Friends of ZEF" Prize awarded to Powell Mponela and Marwa Shumo

The "Friends of ZEF" Prize is awarded every three years by the “Friends of ZEF”, an association supporting ZEF’s research and outreach activities. 

The prize promotes and awards ZEF’s doctoral students’ excellence in research. It is a ZEF- internal Prize; the selection committee / jury consists of ZEF senior researchers and members of the ZEF Friends association, who select the best theses based on the following criteria: 1. Relevance of the thesis for development, 2. Scientific relevance and innovativeness of the topic, 3. Form & clarity, language style, quality of figures and tables.

This year's winners are: 

Dr. Powell Mponela, an expert in Forestry from Malawi, received the Prize for his doctoral thesis on: “Options for sustainable intensification in maize mixed farming systems: Explorative ex-ante assessment using multi-agent system simulation”. Powell obtained his doctoral degree in 2020 from Bonn University's Faculty of Agriculture. 

Portrait and interview with Dr. Powell Mponela about his research here.

Dr. Marwa Abdelhamid Shumo, an Entomologist from Oman, received the Prize for her doctoral thesis on Use of Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) in bioconversion and feed production. She also obtained her doctoral degree from Bonn University's Faculty of Agriculture in 2020.   

More information about Dr. Marwa Shumo's research activities at ZEF here.