The people shaping
Rankine Innovation
Lab.

Rankine is defined by the researchers, innovators, and systems thinkers who guide its intellectual direction — individuals who bring rigour, originality, and a commitment to applied progress across artificial intelligence, sustainability, and the environmental sciences.

Meet the Team Future Fellows
Co-Founder
Ridwan Taiwo PhD
Co-Founder
Adesola Habeeb Adegoke
Guided by

Thinkers Who
Work Across
Boundaries

"The problems that matter most do not belong to any single discipline — and neither do the people best positioned to address them."

Rankine Innovation Lab is built by a multidisciplinary team of founders, researchers, collaborators, and applied practitioners. Our members work across artificial intelligence, environmental systems, sustainability design, and practical research translation. The lab's character — rigorous, applied, interdisciplinary, and African-rooted — comes from how this broader team works together.

Meet the Team

Artificial Intelligence

Applied machine learning, intelligent systems design, and the responsible deployment of AI in scientific and institutional contexts.

Sustainability Science

Circular systems thinking, ecological accounting, and the design of economies and organisations that regenerate rather than extract.

Environmental Systems

Remote sensing, environmental modelling, and the integration of ecological intelligence into decision-making at scale.

Applied Innovation

Innovation methodology, knowledge translation, and the building of systems that convert research into capability and change.

The Founders

A Team for Applied
Innovation

Portrait of Taiwo Ridwan, Co-Founder of Rankine Innovation Lab

Ridwan
Taiwo PhD

Co-Founder · Co-Director · Rankine Innovation Lab
"Intelligence is only as valuable as the clarity with which it can be communicated and the precision with which it can be acted upon."

Ridwan Taiwo (PhD) is a co-founder and co-director of Rankine Innovation Lab, where he shapes the intellectual and strategic direction of the lab's work at the intersection of applied artificial intelligence and sustainable development. His contribution to Rankine is rooted in a conviction that the most consequential applications of AI are not in autonomous systems operating at vast scale — but in the quiet, rigorous work of giving researchers, practitioners, and institutions better tools for understanding and acting on complex problems.

His approach is fundamentally applied and integrative: committed to frameworks that hold up in real contexts, tools that practitioners can use without specialist AI training, and research that is designed from the outset for translation and deployment rather than isolated publication. Ridwan's thinking at Rankine draws from systems design, applied machine learning, and the philosophy of scientific practice — oriented always toward what it means for knowledge to be genuinely useful rather than merely technically correct.

Areas of Focus
Applied AI Systems Design Innovation Strategy Knowledge Translation Research Practice Sustainability Intelligence
Intelligent systems should reduce complexity for the people who depend on them — not increase it.
Research that cannot be translated into a usable tool or a teachable framework has not yet finished its work.
African intellectual excellence is not a regional qualifier — it is a globally relevant way of building.
Collaborate with Ridwan Get in Touch
Portrait of Habeeb Adegoke, Co-Founder and Co-Director of Rankine Innovation Lab

Adesola Habeeb
Adegoke

Co-Founder · Co-Director · Rankine Innovation Lab
"Institutional research is strongest where intelligent systems, infrastructure, and biological innovation are designed to work together."

Adesola Habeeb Adegoke serves as Co-Founder and Co-Director of Rankine Innovation Lab, where he leads research at the intersection of artificial intelligence, sustainable infrastructure, and biotechnology (biogeotechnics). His work advances an applied research agenda focused on building robust frameworks that connect scientific insight to institutional decision-making and real-world implementation.

At Rankine, his leadership combines systems-oriented scientific thinking with translational discipline, ensuring that research outputs are methodologically rigorous, operationally relevant, and suited to complex environments. He focuses on developing integrated models and programmes that strengthen long-term capability across infrastructure resilience, intelligent systems, and biotechnology-enabled sustainability.

Areas of Focus
Artificial Intelligence Sustainable Infrastructure Biotechnology Biogeotechnics Research Leadership Translational Systems
Strong research programmes are built to guide real institutional choices, not just produce isolated findings.
AI, sustainable infrastructure, and biogeotechnics deliver the greatest value when designed as one integrated system.
Scientific rigour matters most when it translates into durable capability across organisations and communities.
Collaborate with Habeeb Get in Touch
Portrait of Hafsat Alabere, Research Associate at Rankine Innovation Lab

Hafsat
Alabere

Research Associate · Biomedical & Cross-Disciplinary Innovation
"The transition from laboratory evidence to responsible field application is one of the hardest moves in bio-based innovation."

Hafsat Alabere is a Research Associate at Rankine Innovation Lab, contributing to biomedical and cross-disciplinary innovation across the lab's sustainability and AI-enabled research agenda.

She is a PhD Candidate at West Virginia University School of Medicine and a biomedical scientist and microbiologist whose work spans microbiology, infectious disease, and AI-applied research.

Areas of Focus
Microbiology Biomedical Science Infectious Disease AI-Applied Research Bio-Based Materials Cross-Disciplinary Innovation
Scientific rigour in laboratory systems is essential for credible real-world innovation.
Cross-disciplinary collaboration strengthens how research translates into practice.
AI-assisted methods are most valuable when grounded in domain expertise.
Collaborate with Hafsat Get in Touch
Collective Expertise

Six Domains.
One Coherent Vision.

The expertise clusters at Rankine reflect the domains where the founders' combined capabilities are strongest — and where the most consequential applied work is currently happening. These are not silos; they are overlapping fields that the lab treats as a single integrated inquiry.

Intelligent Systems

Applied machine learning, AI systems design, model interpretability, and the principled deployment of intelligent tools in real scientific and institutional practice.

Applied ML
Systems Design
Explainability

Sustainability Science

Circular economy design, ecological accounting, life-cycle analysis, and the translation of sustainability theory into operational frameworks for organisations and systems.

Circular Design
LCA
Strategy

Environmental Resilience

Remote sensing, environmental data systems, climate modelling, and the integration of ecological intelligence into governance and institutional decision frameworks.

Remote Sensing
Modelling
Governance

Smart Agriculture

Precision agronomy, IoT sensing, satellite data for crop monitoring, and data-driven farming systems designed to function within real resource constraints.

Precision Agri
IoT & Sensing
Food Systems

Applied Research

Research methodology, pilot study design, evidence validation, and the construction of applied research programmes that produce usable outcomes rather than isolated publications.

Methodology
Pilot Design
Validation

Knowledge Translation

The architecture of accessible scientific communication — frameworks, explainers, curriculum design, and the pedagogical systems that make complex knowledge genuinely usable for non-specialist decision-makers.

Curriculum
Framework Dev
Communication
Growing the Circle

Future Fellows
& Collaborators

Rankine is a growing intellectual community. As the lab's work expands, we will add fellows, research advisors, visiting contributors, and collaborative partners who bring depth and diversity to the domains we work in. These positions are being designed carefully — they will be filled by the right people, not just available ones.

Coming Soon
Additional team members are joining across research and delivery
Rankine is in the process of formally welcoming a third founding contributor whose expertise in environmental systems and applied data science will deepen the lab's reach in the domains of ecological intelligence and climate adaptation.
Team Research Fellow

Expert in Residence: AI & Applied Science

We are seeking a research fellow with deep expertise in applied machine learning for scientific discovery — someone committed to translational research and the design of tools that genuinely extend scientific capability. This is not a conventional academic position; it is a home for researchers who want their work to reach beyond the journal.

Express Interest
Advisory Board

Strategic Advisor: Sustainability Systems

Rankine's advisory structure will include senior figures from sustainability science, circular economy practice, and environmental governance — individuals whose perspective and network help the lab remain intellectually ambitious and practically credible as it grows.

Enquire About Advisory Roles
Visiting Contributor

Visiting Scholar: Smart Agriculture & Food Systems

The lab is building a visiting contributor programme for researchers whose work in precision agronomy, food security, and agricultural data systems can be advanced through collaboration with Rankine — and whose presence would enrich the lab's own research direction.

Learn More
Institutional Collaborator

Partner Institution Collaboration

We are actively building institutional research partnerships with universities, think tanks, and applied research bodies whose work in knowledge translation, science communication, and research-to-practice infrastructure aligns with Rankine's core mission.

Discuss a Partnership
Work With the Lab

Serious Work Begins
with the Right People

If you are a researcher, institution, organisation, or funder who believes in the same vision of applied, translational, sustainability-oriented innovation — there is a place for you in the Rankine ecosystem.

Research

Research Collaboration

Joint inquiries, co-authorship, pilot studies, and applied research partnerships across AI, sustainability, smart agriculture, and environmental intelligence.

Start a Conversation
Speaking

Speaking & Keynotes

The Rankine founders speak on applied AI, sustainable innovation, knowledge translation, and the future of interdisciplinary research practice. Available for conferences, institutional events, and public programmes.

Book a Speaker
Partnerships

Institutional Partnerships

Long-term embedded collaboration for institutions seeking to build genuine applied innovation capability — co-designed programmes, shared research infrastructure, and organisational capacity development.

Explore Partnerships
Fellows & Advisors

Join the Inner Circle

If you are a researcher, practitioner, or institutional leader who shares Rankine's values and wants to contribute to its growing intellectual community — as a fellow, advisor, or visiting contributor — we want to hear from you.

Express Interest
Begin the Conversation

Ready to build something
that lasts?

Contact Rankine View Programmes