Academic Fellows

Babajide Owoyele is a dual PhD candidate at the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (Netherlands) and the Chair of Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems (Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam). He explores data-driven approaches to understanding the rules, skills, and roles of Systemic Intermediaries by mining their narratives and discourse corpus, towards providing insights on how they might amplify strategies for transformative innovation outcomes.

Kwabena Opoku-Agyemang earned his PhD from West Virginia University in 2017 and is a lecturer at the University of Ghana's Department of English. His scholarly interests revolve around African digital literature, while his research has appeared in journals such as Research in African Literatures, Postcolonial Text, and Sens Public, as well as in peer reviewed volumes.

Dr Daniel Oloo Ong’ong’a earned his PhD at the Communication University of China. He received his MSc in Communications Studies and BSc in Communications and Public Relations from Moi University, Kenya.

Maame Nikabs is a linguist, diversity, inclusion and equity consultant, and cross-cultural communication specialist. She is the founder of LingLab consult, a firm specialising in offering language-related consultancy and training to support organizations' diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts. Her research focuses on applying linguistic research in other disciplinary contexts, such as the media and in turning analysis into evidenced-based training.

Molemo Moiloa lives and works in Johannesburg, and has worked in various capacities at the intersection of creative practice and community organizing. Molemo’s academic work has focused on the political subjectivities of South African youth. She is one half of the artist collaborative MADEYOULOOK, who explore everyday popular imaginaries and their modalities for knowledge production.

Mphathisi Ndlovu is a lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Zimbabwe. He graduated with PhD in Journalism from Stellenbosch University (South Africa) in 2016, and is also a research fellow at the same institution.

Fungai Machirori is studying for a PhD at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She is also a researcher and writer who is interested in how online spaces can be used to develop new narratives and concepts around collective and individual African identity.

Gladys Kalichini is a scholar and contemporary visual artist from Lusaka, Zambia. Her work centres on notions of erasure, memory, and representations and visibilities of women in colonial resistance histories. She is currently a PhD candidate in Art History at Rhodes University in South Africa and a member of the Arts of Africa and Global Souths research programme, supported by the Andrew. W. Mellon foundation and NRF.

Loubna El-Mkaouar is an interdisciplinary lecturer at the University of Westminster part of the College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries. She recently finished a PhD on the role of power structures, media narratives and discourses in creating/changing the culture of gender rights in the Middle East. She teaches practical and theoretical classes focused on broadcast/digital and creative media content.

Gideon Chitanga is a PhD student in the University of Pretoria’s Department of Political Science. His PhD research is a study of the SADC Mediation of the Intrastate Democratization Conflict in Zimbabwe, 2008-2013. His main research interests are democracy, governance and security, media and communication, as well as diplomacy with particular focus on Pan African diplomacy.

Kofi Asihene is a second year PhD student at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. His principal research interests lie in the fields of Popular Culture, Contemporary Performing Arts, and Gender. He is particularly interested in examining how these fields interconnect in the broader field of African Studies.