Dr. Makaure is an environmental scientist with GSI Environmental Inc. in Syracuse, New York. His primary expertise is in the conservation and management of aquatic biodiversity in tropical freshwater systems. He has experience in tropical field ecology, species distribution modelling and the application of molecular approaches to quantify genetic variation in freshwater fishes. He has also worked on projects that examine the dynamics of coupled natural and human systems in the afrotropics, including the role of beneficial arthropods in ecosystem service provision, and the impact of pesticides, heavy metals and other anthropogenically derived pollutants on freshwater biota and human health.

Dr. Makaure joined GSI as a postdoctoral intern and led a project on the curation of state specific data used to calculate PFOS fish consumption advisories in the US. He is currently involved in efforts to use the curated data to design a web-based portal that will integrate fish consumption advisory information on several pollutants from all states and territories of the United States. He has also provided technical support through literature reviews, data curation and data analyses to ongoing and completed projects focusing on human health and ecological risk assessment, natural resource damage assessments, environmental justice, environmental litigation cases, grant proposals, and the publication of a monthly bulletin that summarizes emerging trends in the science and policy developments related to PFAS research. He has extensive field sampling experience and has led and participated in field sampling programs targeting several taxa including arthropods, birds, fish, plants and megaherbivores.

As part of his PhD studies, Dr. Makaure worked on several projects including revising the biogeographic zonation patterns of southern Africa’s freshwater fishes, quantifying the extent of population genetic differentiation in a widely distributed freshwater fish species, examining the trophodynamics of mercury contamination in fish guilds from tropical reservoirs, and investigating the impact of pyrethroid contamination from mosquito net fishing on the aquatic health and sustainability of tropical freshwater fisheries.