Current Masunungure comes from the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, a region known particularly for its rugged mountains and scenic beauty. He completed his undergraduate BSc (Hons) degree with a distinction in Forest Resources and Wildlife Management at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Zimbabwe in 2012. He was then awarded the prestigious Beit Trust Scholarship to pursue his MSc in Environmental Science at Rhodes University in South Africa, completing in 2016. Currently, he is working toward his PhD (Nature Conservation) at Nelson Mandela University’s Sustainability Research Unit (South Africa). His principal research interest is decision-making in natural resource management with a particular focus on prioritization of invasive alien plants management. Invasive Alien Plants (IAPs) are a critical issue in South Africa given the huge fiscal burden associated with them; their threat to biodiversity, water security, fire risks; negative impacts on climate change as well as loss of agricultural productivity and tourism opportunities. The study will complement on-going scientific efforts to understand the order in which alien species should be controlled, knowledge on when and where resources should be allocated to reduce density and extent on invasive species. While at IIASA as a guest research assistant, Mr. Masunungure will be collaborating with Prof. Yuri Ermoliev (Advanced Systems Analysis program, ASA) and Dr. Tatiana Ermolieva (Ecosystems Services and Management program, ESM), where he will seek to develop a stochastic and dynamic model to inform the choices of appropriate robust management options of woody IAPs under different heterogenous condition such as economic constraints, diverse stakeholder values and knowledge, development plans, resource constraints, environmental constraints and climate change.
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