The Rift faces challenges like habitat destruction, wildlife poaching, and resource exploitation. Activities include conservation programs, anti-poaching patrols, and community education. Projects involve reforestation, sustainable tourism, and partnerships with local communities to promote biodiversity.

My research area of interest is renewable energy. Since energy is the engine of everything that does many works. For my research specifically on Organic Solar Cells’ power conversion performance using Plasmonic Nanoparticles at different layers of inverted Organic solar cells, I am studying the title “Unraveling Plasmon-Coupled Power Conversion Efficiency Enhancement in Wide-Band Gap Polymers-Based Organic Solar Cells: Both Experimental and Computational Approaches” at Addis Ababa University under the supervisors of Prof. Newayemedihin Aberra Tegegn and Dr. Nika Bekri Abdullah from Ethiopia. This study aims to solve the world’s energy problem and the Horn of Africa, which will contribute to the future of the rift specifically Ethiopia because Ethiopia is found in the Horn of Africa and is one of the parts of the rift.

I’ m interested in exploring and underscoring hominin behaviours in relation to food procurement strategies in the past, stone tools manufacture and the synergetic links between hominin-environmental interactions, cognition abilities and subsistence systems. Specifically, I uses phytolith analysis in combination with archaeological and plant micro-remains data in order to reflect the nature and type of environments that were occupied by early humans and the plant environments surrounding their habitats during the Pleistocene-Holocene epochs.

The Great African Rift includes several linguistic areas belonging to the four major language families of the continent (Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Kongo, Nilo-Saharan and Khoesan). The linguistic diversity of this area is the result of migrations and contacts, sometimes very ancient, between populations of hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and farmers. The comparison between languages suggests several migratory phases and contacts that have repeatedly modified the linguistic landscape. Some languages like Sandawe and Hadza spoken in Tanzania have similar sounds, clicks, to those of the Khoesan family found in Botswana and Namibia.

The sound systems of the Rift languages have particular sound types, some of which are not common in the world’s languages. The case of non-pulmonic consonants such as ejectives, implosives, and clicks is particularly notable. Hadza and Sandawe have sound systems with clicks, ejectives and prenasals. Iraqw, a South Cushitic language (Afroasiatic family) spoken in the Manyara and Arusha regions of Tanzania has a consonantal system that includes a contrast between modal and labialized consonants, a long series of unvoiced fricative consonants and a series of ejective consonants. Maasai, a Nilotic language, has a complete set of implosives in its phonological system, a complete system of vowels [+/- ATR], and tones. In our project, the focus is on several languages from different linguistic families to explore the phoneme production mechanisms of these languages.

Quaternary studies in the field of animal communities with integrated approaches of paleontology, zooarchaeology and taphonomy. Actualist and (paleo)eco-ethological studies, especially on human and animal predation. Reconstruction of paleoenvironments and climatic context in the Plio-Pleistocene.

Research themes: Late Pleistocene and early Holocene hunter-gatherer societies in Africa. I am interested in the organization of hunter-gatherer lithic technology, especially stone procurement. My research explores how technological organization can be studied to understand the major evolutionary and demographic changes of the last hundred-thousand years in Africa.

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.

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.