STIAS is delighted to announce the second-semester cohort of 2026.
The cohort of 29 includes mid-career and senior researchers in mathematics, law, biochemistry, psychology, engineering, languages and medicine.
Representing geographies across the globe, including the USA, Sweden, India, Australia, South Africa and Ghana, the cohort joins a growing community of STIAS Fellows, now around 900.
Apart from enjoying personal space to think and write, the new cohort can look forward to a vibrant and engaging environment where they will interact with fellow Fellows over lunch, at seminars, and at public lectures.
One of the highlights this cohort can look forward to is being a part of the Nobel Symposium in Physics. This will be the second symposium in Physics in the Nobel in Africa Series, which was launched in 2022. The Symposium will bring together leading researchers in quantum information science, condensed matter physics, computer science, and engineering. For more information, visit this page.
Here is a message from STIAS Director, Edward K Kirumira:
An official welcome and orientation session will be held this week.
2026 second-semester cohort:
Barbara (Bibi) Burger
School of Languages and Literatures
University of Cape Town
Project: The whiteness of Afrikaans literary feminism
Maurice Adams
Department of Public Law and Governance
Tilburg University
Project: Euthanasia and Physician assisted suicide (PAS) from a regulatory perspective
Jeremy Foster
College of Art, Architecture & Planning
Cornell University
Project: Landscaping the Cape: “Improvement”, the politics of visibility & the heritage e/affects of socio-ecological commoning, 1872 – 1948
Brian Fox
Department of Biochemistry
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Project: Integration of structure/function predictions into the CERI emerging threat genomic surveillance pipeline
Rosalind Hackett
Department of Religious Studies
University of Tennessee
Project: Spiritual place-making in contemporary gardens
Lydia-Marie Joubert
Division of CryoEM and Bioimaging
Stanford University
Project: Breaking the ice: how integrating cryogenic Electron Microscopy can overcome historical scientific isolation and enable local pharmaceutical and vaccine Development in South Africa.
Ashraf Kagee
Department of Psychology
Stellenbosch University
Project: Epistemology and its discontents: Working as a psychologist in troubled times
Michael Kahn
Centre for Research on Evaluation Science and Technology (CREST)
Stellenbosch University
Project: Knowledge, power, and policy: Constructing a Political Economy of innovation and research in post-Apartheid South Africa
R. Ramakumar
School of Development Studies
Tata Institute of Social Science
Project: Science and technology in Indian agriculture: History, evolution and emerging challenges
Robert Adamu Shey
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Buea
Project: Immunogenicity of multi-epitope transmission-blocking vaccine candidates based on Aedes mosquito saliva proteins
Theunis Roux
School of Global and Public Law
UNSW Sydney
Project: Closing the narrative loop: Indian and South African constitutionalism in the age of reflexive globalisation
Thando Njovane
English Department
Rhodes University
Project: Trauma theory and childhoods in African fiction
Jerry Ochola
Department of Manufacturing, Industrial and Textile Engineering
Moi University
Project: Computational modelling of tubular fibrous scaffold structures for cardiovascular graft applications: Parametric modelling, and finite element analysis
Elsje Pienaar
Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering
Purdue University
Project: What would it take to make a virtual microbiology lab?
Guido Veronese
Department of Human Sciences & Education
The University of Milano-Bicocca
Project: Children’s mental health and human rights amidst conflict: How agency and activism shape psychological resilience and survival skills
Ishmael Takyi
Department of Mathematics
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
Project: Decay widths of Baryon Resonance
Ina Dietzsch
Institute for Critical Research in Culture and History
Marburg University
Project: Waterworlding: More-than-human and more-than-digital
Nana Akua Anyidoho
Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research
University of Ghana
Project: Degrees of becoming: Young women’s use of higher education as a symbolic resource in the making of selfhood
Ulf Gyllensten
Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology
Uppsala University
Project: Identification of novel biomarkers for gynaecological cancer – when is screening becoming a reality?
Mark Malloch-Brown
London School of Economics
Project: Navigating challenge
Carlos Ibanez
Department of Neuroscience
Karolinska Institute
Project: SLEEP: Minimalism and the brain
Moritz Kraemer
Department of Biology
University of Oxford
Project: Generative AI to Strengthen Global Health Security
Martha Bradley
Department of Public Law
University of Johannesburg
Project: Classification conundrums: Classifying, re-classifying and de-classifying conflicts involving alliances, coalitions, umbrella groups and proxies
Afe Adogame
History and Ecumenics & Religion and Society Program
Princeton Theological Seminary
Project: Faith and Food: The Intersectionality of Belief, Politics, Security and Human Flourishing in Africa
Anne Baker
Department of Language and Literature
University of Amsterdam
Project: How do you sign it? Creating a multimedia multilingual descriptive grammar of South African Sign Language on a digital platform
Gretchen Bauer
Department of Political Science and International Relations
University of Delaware
Project: Women cabinet ministers in West Africa: Insights from The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone
Cyril Boateng
Department of Physics
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
Project: Geophysical fingerprinting of African archaeological sites: Developing a multi-method framework for characterising historical clay and mud structures
Iveren Abiem
Department of Plant Science and Biotechnology
University of Jos
Project: Assessing the impacts of climate change on ecosystem services in African montane ecosystems
Sebastiaan Swart
Department of Marine Science
University of Gothenburg
Project: How the ocean ventilates heat and carbon