Christine Adongo is currently an early stage researcher doing PhD at l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS – Paris), and a member of Institut Interdisciplinaire d’Anthropologie du Contemporaire (IIAC). She attained both her bachelors and Masters degrees in Environmental science at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya. Broadly, her research interests encompass environment, natural resources, local landscapes, pastoral socio-ecological transition and livelihoods. More specifically, she has worked on natural resources conservation and livelihoods, focusing on the Kenya coastal sacred Kaya forests, and pastoral futures in northern Kenya in so far as climate change adaptation and WASH management at the local level in concerned. Her most work focuses on ‘green’ projects’ implementation (geothermal energy project in Kenya) and their socio-ecological and livelihood implications on the resilience of local pastoral landscape. Christine will use the mobility funds from GDR as a post-doctoral undertaking, to advance her fieldwork and facilitate the dissemination of her work on the contested futures of geothermal in the greater Olkaria geothermal area in Kenya’s rift valley.

My PhD research is about finding and dating cryptotephras in marine sediment cores around the Horn of Africa, over the last million years. The aims are : to provide a tephrostratigraphic framework, and to correlate these tephras with tuffs from the East African Rift (e.g. Silver Tuff from Konso, Ethiopia) using glass shard geochemistry. The outcomes are : the age of hominin fossils, palaeoclimatology of the area, and volcanic history of the East African Rift System.

Currently working as curator at the National Museum of Ethiopia in paleoanthropology, in Addis Ababa, and PhD student in PACEA lab in Bordeaux for African hominin fossils study, especially dental material.

Currently, I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Poitiers. My research interest focuses in exploring the relationships between morphology and dietary behavior of megaherbivores (proboscidean; elephants, and their relatives) revealed from hominid bearing sites of the Afar Rift Valley (e.g., Middle Awash and Hadar) and the Turkana Depression in Ethiopia (Shungura Formation) and Kenya. For the study, I will use multiproxy approaches such as dental wear analyses (dental microwear texture analysis and mesowear) as well as stable isotope study for a better understanding of their responses to various environmental contexts and changes.

This research will contribute to understand the impact of Late Miocene to Middle Pleistocene environments on the habitats of megafauna, which were shared with many other animals including hominins.

I study functional anatomy of plio-pleistocene hominins’ shoulder with biomecanical modeling methods. Notably, I work with Omo Group Research Expedition from the lower Omo Valley.

Thesis title: Dynamics of the Okavango rift system (Botswana): couplings between geodynamics, climate, and impact on the ecosystem.

Description of the research project: My research focuses on the ground deformation of the Okavango Rift Zone (northern Botswana) and its impact on the Okavango Delta system. The objective is to better understand the different processes at play in this region, such as tectonic activity due to the propagation of the East African Rift System, sedimentary processes and the flexural response of the crust to hydrological processes. To do so, I use a multidisciplinary approach combining geomorphological field studies, remote sensing (mainly based on topographic, InSAR and SAR data) and GPS data.

Framework: This research project results from the collaboration of four laboratories: Geosciences Rennes, LETG Rennes, the Okavango Research Institute (Botswana University) and ITES Strasbourg.

My area of interest is mainly concerned with ‘Use of fuel for metallurgical and domestic activities in medieval and contemporary periods: the case of Konso region, South Ethiopia’. Konso is the perfect region to study the use of fuel in a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach. Traditional iron smelting is a vanishing tradition in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. It is, thus, very important to document such a vanishing tradition before its complete disappearance. The study will also help us understand the culture-history of iron technology in the region and reconstruct the pre-medieval and medieval palaeoenvironment of the region through anthracological, archaeobotanical, and ethnoarchaeological approaches.

I have been conducting ethnographic research in the lower Omo region (Debub Omo Zone, Ethiopia) since 2016 in the Muni (Mursi) society and in the regional urban centers. Now a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology, I am writing a monography about the town of Jinka as a hub for the production of images and knowledge about “cultural others” and for activities of culture brokerage.

I am interested in the influence of fallback foods on the selection of dental phenotypes in suids and primates, particularly in early hominins.

One of the objectives of my project is to study the dental data of fossil suids and primates from the Shungura Formation, in the light of the results obtained on controlled-fed pigs, in order to better understand their diversity and evolution in relation to their feeding habits.

Earlier career in the field of development communication, working with NGOs and then as a consultant in the geothermal domain. Now, Phd student addressing the gap between the design of larger industrial geothermal projects and the needs of the local population (participation in geothermal development decision-making processes of local populations).