Our Team
OUR TEAM

Helen Dallas – Executive Director
Helen has over 30 years’ experience working on and leading collaborative research projects on the ecology, conservation and management of aquatic ecosystems in southern Africa. She holds a PHD from the University of Cape Town (UCT) where her freshwater career

Jenny Day – Director
Jenny joined our Board of Directors in 2017. She has over 35 years’ experience in the field of aquatic ecology and the conservation and management of aquatic ecosystems. The biology of freshwater crustaceans has always been of particular interest and

Mao Amis – Director
Dr Amis is the Founder and Executive Director of the African Centre for a Green Economy (AfriCGE). AfriCGE is a non-profit think thank and capacity building organisation based in South Africa. Prior to founding Africege, Dr. Amis worked as programme
Marycke Roche – Financial Manager
Marycke Roche is a Chartered Accountant and overseas the financial management of FRC. Marycke graduated as a CA (SA) in 1991. She has been running her own practice since 1996 and serves clients in various industries with various functions, the

Jeremy Shelton – Researcher
Jeremy has 10 years of experience working in the field of freshwater ecology. The main thrust of his research is on understanding the consequences of species invasions for stream community structure and function, and he is passionate about conserving threatened

Bruce Paxton – Researcher
Bruce has 15 years of experience in aquatic ecology. Bruce’s main area of interest and expertise is in understanding the links between the biological and physical components of river systems and the implications this has for their management. He has

Justine Ewart-Smith – Researcher
Justine Ewart-Smith is a Cape Town based consultant and researcher with 18 years of experience in freshwater ecology, ranging from specialist input into biomonitoring, strategic environmental assessments and situation assessments, to environmental flow studies both locally and abroad. Justine was

Dean Ollis – Researcher
Dean has more than 15 years of experience working on inland water ecosystems, both as a researcher and a consultant. He holds an MPhil degree in Environmental Science from the University of Cape Town and an MSc degree in Ecological

Kate Snaddon – Researcher
Kate has 19 years of experience in the field of freshwater ecology (both as a researcher and specialist consultant) and environmental consulting (including environmental auditing and waste management). Her specialist skills lie in the areas of freshwater macro-invertebrate identification and

James Dabrowski – Researcher
James Dabrowski holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town and was previously employed as a Specialist Scientist by the Department of Water and Sanitation and as a Principal Researcher by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR),

Dean Impson – Researcher
Dean has 25 years of experience working in the field of river and freshwater fish conservation as a conservation scientist. He enjoys working on research projects that focus on conservation of native fishes and associated ecosystems, and the impacts of

Nick Rivers-Moore – Researcher
Nick is an aquatic ecologist with 15 years of professional experience in this field. After completing a PhD in Hydrology at the University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg) in 2003, he went on to a post-doctorate at the Institute for Water Research

Janette Lumley – Office Administrator
Janette Lumley joined FRC in 2018 as the office administrator. She has over 12 years’ experience in various roles including website maintenance, data capturing, bookkeeping, accounting software, software development and she also owned her own small business for 5 years.
INTERNS AND STUDENTS

Daniel van Blerk – MSc Student
Daniel grew up in the Garden Route, where a love for fishing and the outdoors was instilled. He completed his undergraduate and Honors degrees in Biodiversity and Ecology at Stellenbosch University. He is currently doing his MSc in Zoology at

Steve Avidon – MSc Student
Steve is a resident Wild Coast ecologist with a passion rooted in exploring freshwater ecosystems in the region. Steve has studied a BSc in Natural Sciences at UNISA and a BSc in Agricultural Sciences at Stellenbosch University. His introduction to

Jody-Lee Reizenberg – PhD student
Jody studied at the University of Cape Town, graduating in 2012 with a BSc in Zoology, Ecology, and Environmental and Geographical Science. During her undergraduate degree she also worked for the Freshwater Consulting Group as a field assistant to Dr

Nonkanyiso Zungu – PhD student
Nonkanyiso is a Professional Natural Scientist (Pr.Sci.Nat) registered with SACNASP. She is currently a PHD candidate at the University of Cape Town doing research on the potential impact of climate change on freshwater macroinvertebrate species. She is supervised by Dr

Cecilia Cerrilla – PhD student
Ceci obtained her BSc degree in environmental science from Brown University in 2016. After a couple of years spent working on ornithological field projects, she enrolled at the University of Cape Town for her MSc in conservation biology and obtained

Mohammed Kajee – PhD student
Originating from Johannesburg, Mohammed obtained his BSc degree at the University of Cape Town in Marine Biology and Applied Biology in 2014. He then went on to complete his Honours degree in Marine Biology the following year. Mohammed then undertook

Jessica Burnette – MSc student
Jessica has always had a love for animals and the natural world. Since she was young, African wildlife has held a special place in her heart. She knew that one day she wanted to visit Africa and see its amazing
PAST INTERNS AND STUDENTS

Aneri Swanepoel – FRC Intern through the DST-NRF Internship Programme (2020-2021)
Aneri obtained her BSc in Biodiversity and Ecology in 2017 from Stellenbosch University, where she was introduced to a broad range of topics related to the natural environment. She then decided to broaden her knowledge even further by enrolling for

Philip Frenzel – FRC Intern through the DST-NRF Internship Programme (2018-2019)
Philip Frenzel is deeply engaged in environmental sustainability issues – especially, anything relating freshwater ecosystems. Originating from Kwa-Zulu Natal, his interests in environmental issues were borne in his childhood years whilst visiting different game reserves around the country. Philip pursued

Melandry Rafferty – FRC Intern through the DST-NRF Internship Programme (2018-2019)
Melandri Rafferty is highly passionate about environmental conservation and the impact of threatened freshwater ecosystems on the well-being of communities. She is originally from the Eastern Cape and chose the Western Cape to further her studies as it provided more

Toni Olsen – FRC Intern through the DST-NRF Internship Programme (2016)
Toni obtained her BSc in Environmental and Geographical Sciences in 2014 at the University of Cape Town. She went on to study her Honours in Biological Sciences at UCT and graduated in 2015. Toni then enrolled in the DST-NRF internship

Lily Bovin – FRC Intern through the DST-NRF Internship Programme (2017)
Lily obtained her BSc in Marine Biology and Ocean & Atmosphere Science in 2014 at the University of Cape Town. She went on to study Honours in Biological Science at UCT and graduated in 2015. Lily enrolled in the DST-NRF

Terriann Thavar – FRC Intern through the DST-NRF Internship Programme (2017)
Terriann Thavar is highly passionate about environmental conservation. She is originally from KwaZulu-Natal and chose to pursue a degree in the Western Cape to broaden her knowledge of Cape Floristic Region biodiversity. She obtained her BSc in Biodiversity and Conservation

Pfananani Ramulifho – PhD student
Pfananani obtained his junior degree (Geography, 2010) and Environmental Science Honours degree (2011) from University of Venda. His journey with FRC started in 2012 when he enrolled for MSc in Hydrology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal under the supervision of

Keir Lynch – MSc student
Keir Lynch obtained his National Diploma in Nature Conservation at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He worked for several years in natural resource management and conservation in the private sector, before completing his BTech in Nature Conservation with the Cape