Dr. Simaika has more than a decade experience working in African rivers, lakes, wetlands and artificial ponds. He has worked on the development of a new freshwater biomonitoring index for South Africa which earned him the Marsh Award for an Early Career Entomologist in 2017. He has coordinated research on the impact of alien vegetation on the water quality and ecological integrity of streams in South Africa, and held an EU COFUND research project on the comparative assessment of bioindicators of wetland health in Uganda. Dr. Simaika is founder and co-Chair of the IUCN Task Force on Global Freshwater Macroinvertebrate Sampling Protocols (GLOSAM), is a founding member of the IUCN Freshwater Conservation Sub-Committee, and Africa Coordinator of the Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network (FWBON).