Rashieda Davids

Rashieda Davids is a Postdoctoral Researcher based at the University of Pretoria. She holds a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, is a Registered Environmental Assessment Practitioner (EAPASA) and a Registered Professional Natural Scientist: Environmental Scientist (SACNASP). She is passionate about using social-ecological systems thinking, ecosystem service theory and transdisciplinary approaches, to understand and enhance the roles that both humans and the environment play, in achieving sustainable development. Using her background in impact assessment, her postdoc research will focus on assessing the transformative potential of natural capital approaches, including natural capital assessments and natural capital accounting. Her research is embedded within a larger partnership between the University of Pretoria; The Natural Capital Project; and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The partnership is working on new ways to capture and account for, protect, restore, and revive, the multiple and complex contributions that nature makes to human well-being and in human development. Prior to her postdoc, Rashieda was based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where she served as Research Programme Manager and Researcher on the international Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) Programme (led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). She also holds extensive experience in the government and private environmental sectors, where her roles included strategic leadership, project management, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation planning, strategic environmental assessment, environmental impact assessment, environmental management and monitoring.