University of Cape Coast

Prof Rofela Combey is an Associate Professor, Department of Conservation Biology and Entomology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Coast (UCC), Deputy Director, International Stingless Bee Centre, Ghana, and Resident Bee Taxonomist for West Africa. Prof Combey serves as a taxonomist on a number of biodiversity assessment projects, including FAO Global Pollination Project, Stingless Bees Project, Ghana, Bees, Birds, and Shea Project, A Standard Method for Assessing Pollinator biodiversity in Tropical Ecosystem as well as National Science Foundation project-Odonata in Ghana: morphological adaptations to environmental gradients. She is a 2021 USA Fulbright scholar and 2013 Brazil TWAS-CNPq research fellow. She has 15 years’ experience as a faculty woman in STEM, and 20 years as the Senior Insect taxonomist and curator at the Entomology Museum, UCC, Ghana. She also has over two decades experience as a consultant for alternative livelihood ventures for youth and women. She holds a PhD in Zoology from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana and  a PostDoc in Geometric Morphometrics and Molecular Systematics from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Diversity of people and space inspire her in advancing creativity, innovation and youth oriented educational interventions. She has been a student advisor for over 10 years and patrons a number of student associations and programmes. Instinctively, she is a value-added team member who is overjoyed when she can credit a person or a group with being successful. Rofela recognizes and cultivates the potential in others by spotting the signs of each small improvement and derive satisfaction from these improvements as teams/ individuals strive to achieve desired goals. She can underscore what people have in common even though their backgrounds, experiences, languages, cultures, and interests vary greatly and facilitates dialogue between individuals. She understands that somehow our individual successes depend on each other. Prof Combey takes psychological and spiritual ownership of what she says she will do. Core to her stable value systems are honesty, hardwork and loyalty. Contributing her talents, leadership skills, project management skills, resource management skills and knowledge to the team or a person gives her great pleasure. She likes to figure out how all of the pieces and resources can be arranged for maximum productivity even in novel terrains. Currently, she also explores businesses in nature based solutions.