Course Leads

Asha is an interdisciplinary researcher with a focus on energy transition, energy resilience, low-carbon energy innovation, bioeconomy, sustainable cooling, and gender. Her primary research interests lie in the intersection of international development, energy, and gender. Currently employed as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Cooling, at the University of Birmingham, she adopts a comprehensive approach to identify existing and anticipated challenges and sustainable solutions within the global cooling and cold-chain sector.

She contributes to the development of assessment tools for evaluating cooling and cold-chain requirements, ensuring their integration of gender and social inclusivity principles in design, data collection, and analysis. Furthermore, her research leadership has extended to examining the reciprocal impacts of gender and social inclusion in cooling and cold-chain initiatives, alongside the formulation of monitoring, evaluation, and learning frameworks, as well as safeguarding policies, all these aimed at institutionalizing gender equality and social inclusion in cooling and cold-chain efforts—a crucial area of advancement within the sector. Additionally, she has assisted the team in developing instructional materials to reinforce the capacity of local communities preceding the adoption of new cold-chain technologies and business/financial models, with a specific emphasis on improved integration of socio-economic impacts of clean cooling and cold-chain.

Gace Athanase Dalson, a dedicated scholar, holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in Applied Fluid Mechanics from the National University of Singapore, 2018. He earned his Bachelor's degree with honours in Physics from the National University of Rwanda in 2012.

Gace is currently an Academic Head at the African Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain (ACES), coordinating strategies and overseeing academic programs. He contributes significantly to ACES' mission of advancing sustainable cold chain technologies.
Gace has published several papers in prestigious journals and conferences and led as Principal Investigator transformative projects like the Solar-Powered E-tractor Development initiative. His research portfolio spans diverse areas, from applied metrology, refrigeration, cold chain, and solar energy systems, and their application for social and economic growth.

He is a reviewer for prestigious journals, including Flow Measurement Instrumentation, Measurement Science and Technology published by Elsevier, the Jordan Journal of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and the Journal of Advanced Thermal Science Research.

Jean Baptiste is an interdisciplinary Food Scientist (a well-rounded Agro-processing scientist) with 12 years of experience in the field. He is interested in food science, or Agro-processing, of both animal food, such as milk and meat, as well as crop, horticultural foods, such as cereals.

He is passionate about economics and/or business, engineering, environment, and other life sciences to
explain phenomena/processes/projects in Food Science or Food systems.

As a lecturer and researcher with experience in teaching in higher education, Jean Baptiste is an aspiring future Professor.

Co-authored publications in major peer-reviewed scientific journals and 7 extension or IC materials and 2 strategic plans, leading teams up to 10 people, and contributed in several grant funding.

Jean Pierre Musabyimana is Research Lead at Africa’s Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain (ACES), where he heads a One Health program that synchronizes immunization systems, seed systems and farming resilience, nutritional security and food safety, and health systems resilience—recognizing that human, animal, plant and environmental health are inextricably linked.

In this capacity, he actively contributes to conceiving and implementing innovative cold chain models for vaccines, diagnostics and antibody development that span sectors and geographies, applying renewable energy refrigeration, IoT-enabled temperature monitoring, and robust biobanking to safeguard biologicals and bolster supply chain integrity in low-resource settings.

An infection biologist with a PhD in Cell and Applied Infection Biology and dual MScs in Biotechnology & Bioinformatics and Global Health Delivery, Jean Pierre leverages his expertise in structural/comparative genomics, vaccine and therapeutic R&D, and advanced bioinformatics pipelines to align laboratory innovation with field needs.

He forges multisectoral partnerships with universities, industry, and government to pilot context-adapted interventions, drawing on One Health insights into urban agriculture, food systems, and resilience and addressing food safety risks through integrated approaches.

Regionally, he co-leads pandemic surveillance, genomics and climate modelling consortia, most notably the EDCTP3-funded GREAT LIFE initiative, which deploys field-portable genomics and novel diagnostics across the African Great Lakes, advancing early detection and response. As Co-PI of the KIVU JUA consortium, he spearheads Mpox epidemiology and immunology research in Central Africa, contributing to the WHO Mpox Genomic Surveillance Community of Practice and serving on Africa CDC’s RISLNET committee. He also co-leads malaria drug resistance surveillance in East Africa, integrating NGS workflows into routine monitoring for artemisinin resistance.

Passionate about sustainable cooling, Jean Pierre weaves environmental engineering, data analytics, and One Health principles to reinforce vaccine delivery, food safety, and overall health system resilience, positioning ACES and Rwanda as models for cross-sectoral, climate-smart public health preparedness.

Chief Technical Instructor.

Dr Hammond gained his Master of Mechanical Engineering (MEng Hons) degree at the University of Bath and a PhD in Retail Display Refrigeration, ‘effect of reducing air curtain length on heat transfer through vertical air curtains’, at the University of Bristol. He is a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), and a Fellow of the Institute of Refrigeration (IOR).
Equally competent on the tools, Ed’s academic experience is backed by years of commercial experience in the refrigeration industry and practical, “hands-on” mechanical engineering skills. This combination of academic analysis and practical application has enabled him to develop innovative solutions to problems around cooling, temperature control, Carbon reduction, agriculture and Energy.
Ed works with ACES and the Clean Cooling Network to review technologies, develop technical specifications and prepare training material.