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STIAS announces second cohort for 2025 STIAS is thrilled to announce the commencement of the second semester of 2025 and the arrival of the latest cohort of Fellows. The semester starts on 14 July 2025 with the arrival of Fellows, Visiting Scholars and Artists-in-residence, with an official Welcome and Orientation gathering on 16 July. The cohort will be the first users of the much-expanded facilities which comprise additional seminar rooms, additional Fellows’ offices and expanded dining and commons areas. The cohort of 39 members - the largest so far since the fellowship programme began - includes leading scholars from across the globe in disciplines ranging from Philosophy of Science, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, to Political Science, History, Religion, Gender Studies and Public Health to mention just a few. The cohort also includes two Artists-in-Residence who will work on book projects. The cohort can look forward to a packed programme of seminars, three public lectures, inclusion in workshops and meetings hosted by STIAS, as well as many other personal and collective highlights during their stay, most of which the Fellows themselves cause! “A highlight of the semester will be our fifth Nobel in Africa Nobel Symposium in November,” said STIAS Director Edward K. Kirumira. “This year’s Nobel Symposium is on Literature, with the theme Retrieving Pasts, Imagining Futures: Creative Forms in African Writing.” (For more details see https://stias.ac.za/events/nobel-symposium-in-literature. In 2022 STIAS became the only institute outside of Europe to host Nobel Symposia that have been held since 1965. “STIAS has internationally positioned itself as a Creative Space for the Mind,” added Kirumira, “and, since December 2018, is the only southern hemisphere member of the consortium of Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) which includes 10 institutes organised on the same principles as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.” “We are delighted and enthusiastic to greet the latest cohort and to be exposed to the fascinating new knowledge and insights their work delivers.” STIAS cohort second semester 2025 Lewis Abedi Asante Department of Estate Management Kumasi Technical University Project: Wetland gentrification in African cities: Implications for urban governance, planning, and theory Jacek Banasiak Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics University of Pretoria Project: Metapopulation modelling of disease spread in the context of war and other natural disasters Ishmael Beah Artist-in-Residence Sierra Leone Project: Beware of Bad Dogs, A Novel Lennart Bergström Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry Stockholm University Project: Upcycling of textile waste Robert Berwick Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology Project: Out of Africa: Human Generative Creativity and the Origins of Language Hilde Bras Department of History University of Groningen Project: Reproductive Legacies: Missionary Medicine and Demographic Change in Southeast Africa, 1890–Present Jennifer Case Department of Engineering Education Virginia Tech Project: From first-generation students to the second: An inter-generational study of post-apartheid South African higher education Rick De Villiers Department of English University of the Free State Project: Ctrl Z: Undoing Narratives Sarah Godsell Curriculum and Social Studies, Wits School of Education University of the Witwatersrand Project: Historical Feeling: Exploring the Decolonisation of History Education Amanda Gouws Department of Political Science Stellenbosch University Project: Gender in Turbulent Times: Sexual Violence, Bare Life and Necropolitics Amanda Hammar Centre of African Studies University of Copenhagen Project: Speaking Through Houses: Property and Personhood in Zimbabwe’s Urban Margins Sharief Hendricks Faculty of Health Science University of Cape Town Project: A two-prong approach – preventing head injury in rugby through law changes and effective tackle training. Hans Hertz Department of Applied Physics KTH Royal Institute of Technology Project: Clinical high-resolution phase-contrast x-ray medical imaging Carlos Ibáñez Department of Neuroscience Karolinska Institute Project: Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease: Basic mechanisms and clinical developments Göran Karlsson Division of Molecular Hematology Lund University Project: Generation of a Chronic Myeloid Leukemia single-cell genomic atlas Bridget Kenny School of Social Sciences University of Witwatersrand Project: Lift Stories: The intimate publics of elevators in 20th century Johannesburg Malgorzata Kotulska Department of Biomedical Engineering Wroclaw University of Science and Technology Project: Susceptibility to amyloid-related neurodegenerative diseases evoked by functional amyloid proteins of the gut microbiome – a comparative study of European and African populations Lou-Marié Kruger Department of Psychology Stellenbosch University Project: Decolonisation and affective worlds: On the worldmaking potential of shame and rage in the South African “post”-apartheid present Josefin Larsson Department of Physics KTH Royal Institute of Technology Project: A three-dimensional view of exploding stars Baz Lecocq Institute for Asian and African Studies Humboldt University of Berlin Project: Civil Aviation in East Africa 1946-1986 - Outline of a History Siphokazi Magadla Department of Political and International Studies Rhodes University Project: “S'obashaya Ngamatye”: Women and Sixty Years of the Armed Struggle in South Africa Athambile Masola Historical Studies Department University of Cape Town Project: Ukuhamba kukubona (to travel is to see): a feminist exploration of the intellectual legacies of black women's mobilities Truphena E Mukuna Organization for Social Science in Eastern and Southern Africa-OSSREA Project: Towards re-conceptualization of socio-cultural climate change maladaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa Victoria Namuggala School of Women and Gender Studies Makerere University Project: Identity and Belonging: Teenage Parenthood in Kampala’s Informal Settlements Siphiwe Ndlovu Artist-in-Residence Zimbabwe Project: The Days Lived in Yellow Mduduzi Ndlovu School of Biology and Environmental Sciences University of Mpumalanga Project: Avian malaria and flavivirus prevalence in the savanna regions of South Africa David Niyukuri Department of Mathematics University of Burundi Project: Understanding the effects of malaria parasites and vector biomolecular dynamics on malaria transmission through multiscale modelling and agent-based models Tommy Olsson Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine Umeå University Project: Omics Approach for Personalized Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus for African and European Populations (OPTIMA) Sanya Osha Institute for Humanities in Africa University of Cape Town Project: Paulin Hountondji: The Last of the Titans Wambongo C S Recha Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies Bomet University College Project: Towards re-conceptualization of socio-cultural climate change maladaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science University of the Basque Country Project: Life: autonomy in evolution Daniella Rylander Ottosson Regenerative Neurophysiology Research Group Lund University Project: Cell reprogramming for a greater understanding of – and potential brain repair for mental disorders Arghya Sengupta Research Director Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy Project: The New Internationalist - The Life and Times of Radhabinod Pal Tamara Shefer Department of Women's and Gender Studies University of the Western Cape Project: Decolonisation and affective worlds: On the worldmaking potential of shame and rage in the South African “post”-apartheid present Christopher Shisanya Department of Geography Kenyatta University Project: Towards re-conceptualisation of socio-cultural climate change maladaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa Benjamin Soares Department of Religion University of Florida Project: Dogon Muslims, “Pagan” Saints, and Other Seeming Oxymorons in West Africa Helene Strauss Department of English University of the Free State Project: Phytospheric Justice Myriam Vermeerbergen Faculty of Arts KU Leuven Project: Signs on stage: Translating theatre into a sign language Issouf Zerbo Department of Plant Production and Agronomy University Center of Tenkodogo, Thomas Sankara University Project: Impact of climate change and land use on the conservation of Pterocarpus species in Burkina Faso