People
Staff, researchers & visiting fellows at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa
Professional services staff
Professor Tim Allen Director (on leave)
Ask me about: Institute affiliation, philanthropy and prospective research collaborations.
Email: t.allen@lse.ac.uk
Dr Martha Geiger Mwenitete Interim Director and Assistant Professorial Research Fellow
Ask me about: Multispecies labour relations, animals, gender, ethics, and institute strategy.
Email: m.geiger@lse.ac.uk
Dr David Luke Professor in Practice and Strategic Director
Ask me about: building partnerships, training and capacity development, African trade programme, workshops
Email: d.luke@lse.ac.uk
Anna Williams Research Programme Manager
Ask me about: Research development and research partnership engagement
Email: a.c.williams1@lse.ac.uk
Tosin Adebisi Programme for African Leadership Senior Programme Manager
Ask me about: leadership development, youth empowerment collaborations, student voice, stakeholder engagement, strategic partnerships, international student experience, and business development.
Email: o.adebisi@lse.ac.uk
Mark Briggs Communications Manager and Blog Editor
Ask me about: The Africa@LSE blog, The Hub for African Thought, Institute communications.
Email: m.a.briggs@lse.ac.uk
Sofija Spasenoska Communications and Events Officer
Ask me about: Events supported by FLIA, the LSE Africa Summit, social media and communications.
Email: s.spasenoska@lse.ac.uk
Eunice Asantewaa Hansen-Sackey Research Grants Officer
Ask me about: Research grants administration, project partnerships, access to finance and grant reporting.
Email: e.hansen-sackey@lse.ac.uk
Zainab Oyiza Sanni, Programme Officer, Programme for African Leadership
Ask me about: any operations related to the Programme for African Leadership
Email: Z.O.Sanni@lse.ac.uk
Robtel Neajai Pailey| Assistant Professor
Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey is Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy. She centres her research on how structural transformation is conceived and contested by local, national and transnational actors from ‘crisis’-affected regions of the so-called Global South.
Research interests: development, citizenship, migration, conflict, governance, race
Regions of focus: Liberia, Sierra LeoneEmail: r.n.pailey@lse.ac.uk
Claire Mercer | Professor
Professor Claire Mercer is a human geographer working at the intersection of human geography and African studies. Her work has developed a critique of the NGO-ization of development and postcolonial approaches to civil society.
Research interests: class, suburbs, architecture, civil society, diaspora
Region of focus: TanzaniaEmail: c.c.mercer@lse.ac.uk
Catherine Boone | Professor
Professor Catherine Boone is Programme Director in African Development at the LSE Department of International Development. Her work focusses on commercial land tenure policies in West Africa.
Research interests: political economy, political development, property rights, land
Regions: Kenya, Côte d'IvoireEmail: c.boone@lse.ac.uk
X: @cboone2023
Laura Mann | Assistant Professor
Dr Laura Mann is an Assistant Professor in the LSE Department of International Development and focusses on the political economy of African development, communication technologies and data in East Africa.
Research interests: political economy, knowledge production, communication technologies and data
Region of focus: KenyaEmail: L.E.Mann@lse.ac.uk
Wendy Willems | Associate Professor
Dr Wendy Willems is Associate Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, where she also serves as Programme Director for the MSc Global Media and Communications.
Research interests: global digital culture, postcolonial approaches
Region of focus:AfricaEmail: w.willems@lse.ac.uk
Katrin Flikschuh | Professor
Professor Katrin Flikschuh's work explores connections between African and Western social and political thought. She is Principal Investigator of a Leverhulme Trust International Networks Project.
Research interests: political philosophy, political thought, modern African philosophy
Region of focus: West AfricaEmail: k.a.flikschuh@lse.ac.uk
Lucy Kanya| Assistant Professor
Dr Lucy Kanya has a health economics and policy background with experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has in the past worked on the evaluation of health financing programmes in Kenya and Uganda.
Research interests: health care financing, maternal and child health
Regions of focus: Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and SenegalEmail: L.Kanya@lse.ac.uk
Declan Conway | Professional Research Fellow
Dr Declan’s research cuts across water, climate and society, with a strong focus on adaptation and the water-energy-food nexus. He has over 20 years of experience working in the UK/Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
Research interests: water security, climate change
Regions of focus: Kenya, Zambia, BotswanaEmail: d.conway@lse.ac.uk
Deborah James | Professor
Professor Deborah is a specialist in the anthropology of South and Southern Africa. Her work is broadly political and economic in focus. She is a Faculty Associate in the LSE International Inequalities Institute.
Research interests: ethnography of advice, aspiration and indebtedness
Region of focus: South AfricaEmail: d.a.james@lse.ac.uk
Leigh Gardner | Associate Professor
Dr Leigh's work focuses on the economic and financial history of sub-Saharan Africa during 19th and 20th centuries, with an emphasis on Africa’s global connnections. Her work focuses on the relationship between African countries and international financial and monetary systems.
Research interests: economic development, monetary policy, public finance
Region of focus: LiberiaEmail: l.a.gardner@lse.ac.uk
Joanna Lewis| Associate Professor
Dr Joanna is a historian of Britain in Africa and Africa in Britain, covering the precolonial to the contemporary time periods. Currently she is researching the history of Somali women who fled conflict in the 1990s and settled in London.
Research interests: migration, refugees, modern African history
Region of focus: SomaliaEmail: j.e.lewis1@lse.ac.uk
Chaloka Beyani| Associate Professor
Dr Chaloka Beyani is an Associate Professor of International Law at LSE Law School, a member of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights and Chair of its Advisory Board, and a member of the Centre for Climate Change at LSE.
Research interests: International law, human rights, treaty & constitution making, peace making
Region of focus: AfricaEmail:c.beyani@lse.ac.uk
Jo Beall| Professor
Professor Jo Beall is an Emeritus Professor and Distinguished Research Fellow at the LSE. She has conducted research in Africa and Asia on urban development and governance as well as cities in situations of conflict and state fragility.
Research interests: urban policy, sustainability, Asia, Africa, cultural engagement
Region of focus: South AfricaEmail: j.beall@lse.ac.uk
George Ofosu| Assistant Professor
Dr George K. Ofosu received his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017. His research focuses on political accountability, election integrity, legislator behaviour, and the quality of democracy.
Research interests: comparative politics, elections, political accountability, African politics
Region of focus: Sub-Saharan AfricaEmail: g.ofosu@lse.ac.uk
Laura Bear| Head of Department of Anthropology
Professor Laura Bear specialises in the anthropology of the economy, infrastructures and time. Bear has assumed positions as a board member in the Economy and Society editorial collective, the LSE International Inequalities Institute and ESRC Rebuilding Macroeconomics Research Network.
Research interests: anthropologies of the economy, state, infrastructures, time
Regions: South AsiaEmail: l.bear@lse.ac.ukX: @BearLauraLSE
Teddy Brett| CPAID Consultant
Professor Teddy Brett has been involved in research, teaching and practice in development since the 1960s and joined the LSE Development Studies Institute in 1993. He is currently a consultant for the LSE Centre for Public Authority and International Development at the FLIA.
Research interests: political economy, institutional reform, reconstruction
Regions of focus: Uganda, ZimbabweEmail: e.a.brett@lse.ac.uk
Dr Simidele Dosekun| Assistant Professor
Dr Simidele Dosekun is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE.
Dr Dosekun's research centres African women to explore questions of gender, race, subjectivity, and power in a global context. She is the author of Fashioning Postfeminism: Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture, and co-editor of African Luxury: Aesthetics and Politics. Her work has appeared in the journals Feminist Media Studies, Feminism and Psychology, Qualitative Inquiry, and Feminist Africa, among others.
Research interests: political economy, institutional reform, reconstruction
Email: S.O.Dosekun@lse.ac.uk
Tom Kirk| Research Fellow
Dr Thomas Kirk is a researcher and consultant based at LSE. His research interests include the provision of security and justice in conflict-affected regions, exploring how power works from top to bottom in ongoing development programmes.
Research interests: security, authoritaniasm, power, water governance
Region of focus: DRCEmail: t.kirk@lse.ac.uk
Colette van der Ven Visting Fellow and Research Consultant
Colette is an international trade lawyer and policy expert specialized in sustainable development. As founder and director of TULIP Consulting, a boutique Geneva-based consultancy, Colette advises the public sector on legal and policy issues at the trade, environment, and development nexus. She is also a visiting lecturer in international law at the Graduate Institute, where she teaches the TradeLab International Economic Law Clinic. Previously, Colette worked as an international trade lawyer at Sidley Austin’s international dispute settlement practice, representing governments in their disputes at the World Trade Organization. Colette holds a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and is a member of the New York Bar.
Research interest: international trade and sustainable development
Region of focus: Africa, Asia
Oluwasola Omoju Research Consultant
Oluwasola Omoju is an Economist and Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), where he provides research and technical support to the Nigerian parliament.
Research interests: energy and climate policy, public financial management, Africa trade policy, macroeconomic modeling and applied development economics
Region of focus: AfricaEmail: shollcy@yahoo.co.uk
Julian Hopwood| Research Fellow
Dr Julian Hopwood has lived in Gulu, northern Uganda for much of the time since 2006, where his work for CPAID is mainly focused, and where he teaches on the Medical Anthropology programme at Gulu University. He recently completed his PhD at Ghent University on land ownership in Acholi, following earlier careers in community mental health in UK and humanitarian-development work in Uganda.
Research interests: ‘Customary’ communal land; environmental, state and community-level justice issues; mental health and resilience.
Region of focus: Northern Uganda, South Sudan
Email: j.hopwood@lse.ac.uk
Claire Elder | Research Fellow
Dr Claire Elder completed her DPhil in Politics at Oxford University after working for the International Crisis Group and years of experience in north-eastern Africa. Her research focuses on public authority and the political economy of state-building in weak states.
Research interests: political economy, diaspora, statebuilding, weak states
Region of focus: SomaliaEmail: c.m.elder@lse.ac.uk
X: @celder_m
Professor Richard Fardon | Visiting Professor
Professor Richard Fardon is a social anthropologist specializing in West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Cameroon, where he began fieldwork in the second half of the 1970s. He is author or editor, often collaboratively, of over two dozen books and fifty plus essays and articles. He taught at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and SOAS University of London, where he is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and was at various times Chair of the Centre of African Studies, University of London, and founding Head of the SOAS Doctoral School. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2004.
Research interests: social anthropology
Region of focus: West Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon
Professor Alcinda Honwana | Visiting Professor
Alcinda Honwana is former Strategic Director at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa and Centennial Professor at the LSE Department of International Development. She is also Visiting Professor of Anthropology and International Development at the Open University and a UN adviser.
Research interests: youth movements, youth activism, social networks, datafication
Region of focus: North Africa, MozambiqueEmail:A.M.Honwana@lse.ac.uk
Professor Tony Barnett | Visiting Professor
Tony Barnett is an interdisciplinary social scientist based at the Royal Veterinary College where he is Professor of Social Sciences. He is currently co-investigator on the One Heath Poultry Hub, funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund.
Research interests: zoonotic diseases, qualitative data, infectious disease models
Region of focus: Uganda, South AfricaEmail: abarnett@rvc.ac.uk
Professor Gibril Faal | Visiting Professor in Practice
Prof. Gibril Faal is a multi-disciplinary business and development executive. He is the co-founder and director of GK Partners, specialising in socially responsible business models, sustainable development and programme implementation.
Research interests: development, migration and diaspora
Region of focus: Africa, EuropeContact: LinkedIn
Dr Piroska Nagy Mohácsi | Visiting Professor in Practice
Piroska Nagy Mohácsi is an Academic Partner of Macroeconomic Advisory Group (MAG), New York. Previously Piroska was Interim Director and Programme Director of the LSE Institute for Global Affairs (2015-2021) leading the institute and its academic programme.
Research interests: monetary and fiscal policy, financial resilience, digital currencies
Region of focus: EuropeEmrail: P.Nagy-Mohacsi@lse.ac.uk
Chude Jideonwo is FLIA's first Creative in Residence.
Tagged ‘the golden boy of African media’, Chude Jideonwo is a media entrepreneur whose 25-year career spans advertising, public relations, television, radio, print, and digital media.
As co-founder and CEO of RED | For Africa, he crafted and led strategies that fueled social movements and shaped national elections across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Senegal. Under his leadership, RED was honored as African Business of the Year alongside Dangote Group and Chandaria Industries.
Dr Tunde Alabi-Hundeyin II | Creative in Residence
Dr Tunde Alabi-Hundeyin II is a documentary filmmaker and media creative whose work interrogates culture, identity, power, and social justice. A PhD graduate in Creative and Critical Practice from the University of Sussex, his acclaimed films and photo exhibitions have featured globally, inspiring dialogue on African agency, ethical storytelling, and impactful advocacy through photography and film.
Research interests: media practice, representation, African development, humanitarian organisations, charities, media advocacy
Region of focus: Africa, Global SouthLinkedIn: Dr Tunde Alabi-Hundeyin II
Ian Mangenga | Creative in Residence
Ian Mangenga is a social designer and AI ethics & governance researcher whose work explores how algorithmic systems quietly shape identity, access, and power, with a particular focus on the experiences of African women. She is the founder of Digital Girl Africa, a community incubator advancing AI literacy and digital confidence for women across the continent.
She is currently completing an MA in AI, Ethics & Society at Birkbeck, University of London.
LinkedIn: Ian Mangenga
Ama Ofeibea Tetteh | Creative in Residence
Ama Ofeibea Tetteh is the founder and lead consultant at Chapter54. With a background in Graphics & Communications, Research and Programme Management and academic qualifications from Central St. Martins, Goldsmiths College and SOAS, her career portfolio is driven by a passion to harness the Arts and Creative sector to create opportunities and contribute to new narratives about the Continent.
Having worked within the Creative and Cultural Industries for over two decades, her professional offering centres on a deep understanding of cultural nuance and appreciation for the artistic as well as the operational.
LinkedIn: Ama Ofeibea Tetteh
Dr Teferi Mergo | Visiting Senior Fellow
Teferi Mergo is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Waterloo (UW), with appointments at United College, the Economics department and the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development. He is a Research Fellow at Global Labour Organization and has been recognised for research excellence at UW.
Research interests: development economics, political economy, and demographic economics
Region of focus: Sub-Saharan Africa
Dr Rachel Ibreck | Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Rachel Ibreck is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa and Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, one of the British International Research Institutes with a research centre in Nairobi, promoting research in the humanities and social sciences across the region.
Research Interests: politics, civil society, human rights, justice, conflict and genocide
Region of Focus: East Africa
Dr Hany Besada | Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Hany Besada is a Visiting Senior Fellow at FLIA. He is also a Non-Executive Director, MAFCO Capital and Executive Director, Institute for Natural Resources and Sustainable Development; Senior Research Fellow, United Nations University-Institute for Natural Resources in Africa; and Senior Fellow, Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, University of Toronto.
Research Interests: Natural Resource Governance/Management, Sustainable Development, Digital Economy and Technologies for Sustainable Development, Trade and Investment Promotion & Facilitation, Climate Change and Environment Sustainability, South-South Cooperation, Peacebuilding and Economic Reconstruction
Region of Focus: Africa, Middle East, Global South, BRICS
Dr Desné Masie| Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Desné Masie is an economist and journalist, and has held several senior roles in media, academia and financial services in the UK and South Africa. Dr Masie has advised governments and major multinational corporations on geopolitical risk, economic policy, sustainable finance and wider financial sector policy. She has been awarded a Pulitzer Grant for her work on carbon markets, and is an accomplished public speaker and author.
Research interests: geopolitics, economics, international finance, carbon markets, nature markets, news media, public affairs
Region of focus: SADC, Nigeria, Kenya, UK, EU, BRICS, Africa in the international political economy
Louise Arimatsu | Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Louise Arimatsu is Distinguished Policy Fellow in the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, where she works on the AHRC project 'A Feminist International Law of Peace and Security' and the ERC project 'Gendered Peace'. Her current research projects include 'A Feminist Foreign Policy' and 'Women and Weapons'.
Research interests: International Human Rights Law
Email: l.arimatsu@lse.ac.uk
Dr Souad Mohamed| Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Souad Mohamed is an experienced CEO, consultant, and academic specializing in UK higher education and learning development. With a successful record in global partnership development, she currently leads the Women in Local Governance program in Saudi Arabia, while serving as CEO at IEL International. She has driven impactful women leadership projects, advocating for policy reforms and women's participation.
Research interests: gender-responsive policies, strategic partnership development, women leadership development and youth development
Region of focus: Middle East & Northeast Africa
Email: s.mohamed7@lse.ac.uk
X: @DRSouadmohamed
Vanessa Iwowo | Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Vanessa Iwowo is Lecturer in Organisational Psychology. She is an award-winning management scholar whose research focuses on ways of enhancing leadership development in international contexts.
Research interests: management, leadership development, organisational psychology,
Region of focus: AfricaEmail: v.iwowo@bbk.ac.uk
X: @DrVanessaIwowo
Anna Macdonald | Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Anna Macdonald works at the LSE Centre for Public Authority and International Development and the Conflict Research Programme, where she researches ideas of public authority and legal pluralism in the Horn of Africa.
Research interests: law, justice, statehood and social order
Region of focus: UgandaEmail: A.Macdonald1@lse.ac.uk
Shirley Yu | Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Shirley Ze Yu is a leading voice on China’s political economy, an Asia Fellow with the Ash Center of Harvard Kennedy School, an adjunct professor with the IE Business School and a member of the Davos Expert Network on 5G, geopolitics and geoeconomics
Research interests: political economy, business, trade
Region of focus: China, AfricaEmail: s.yu19@lse.ac.uk
X: @shirleyzeyu
Gedion Onyango | Visiting Senior Fellow
Gedion Onyango is a researcher and scholar in Public Policy and Governance in African countries. He was a Co-PI for the Centre for Public Authority and International Development and the Co-National Investigator for Kenya at Afrobarometer.
Email: g.onyango@lse.ac.uk
Elizabeth Ngutuku | Visiting Senior Fellow
Eliza has over 20 years of experience, working on multidisciplinary issues related to children and youth development in eastern Africa. The issues she focuses on include child poverty and vulnerability, education for marginalised children and youth, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Email: e.m.ngutuku@lse.ac.uk
Dr Tessa Laing Visiting Fellow
Tessa is a community organiser and scholar who has worked alongside activists and communities in northern Uganda since 2013 in struggles for social and environmental change. Her work has included supporting successful campaigns to pass and enforce alcohol legislation and to resist forced land evictions. She is currently the Peace & Justice Coordinator of the Anglican Diocese of Northern Uganda, leading a team focused on building a community-driven peace process to transform a large-scale land conflict.
Research interests: The politics of land, history of land tenure, public authority, resistance and peasant political action, natural resources, peace-building.
Region of focus: Northern Uganda and East Africa
Anne-Line Rodriguez Visiting Fellow
Dr Anne-Line Rodriguez is an anthropologist specialising in the ethnographic study of local interactions with the global mobility regime in West and North Africa.
Research interests: governance of migration; social becoming; economic inclusion; care.
Region of focus: Senegal; West and North Africa.
Email: a.rodriguez3@lse.ac.uk
Iliana Sarafian Research Fellow
Dr Iliana Sarafian is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Public Authority and International Development at FLIA, LSE. Iliana’s research is in the fields of minority health and wellbeing, gender, ethnicity, and social inequalities in European contexts.
Research interests: Resilience, gender, social inequality, ethnicity, European Roma populations.
Region of focus: UK, Poland, Italy, Bulgaria.
Email: I.Sarafian@lse.ac.uk
William Davis Visiting Fellow
Will is an economist who has worked with organizations across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. During most of his career he has focused on Africa, covering trade, fiscal and industrial policies as well as illicit financial flows. He is currently an independent consultant supporting a range of organizations on the economics of Africa, including the continent's food trade, opportunities for economic development linked to green minerals, illicit financial flows, and domestic resource mobilisation, fiscal policies for the mining sector, emissions taxes and voluntary carbon markets. He is an invited participant in the United Nations sub-committee on Extractive Industries Taxation and the technical advisory board of the Global Mining Tax Initiative.
Research interests:international trade, industrial policies, illicit financial flows, taxation
Region of focus:Africa with in-depth work on Senegal and Zambia
Francesca Beausang Visiting Fellow
Francesca has experience in both the academic and corporate worlds. She left academia in 2004 to become a macroeconomist in finance, covering emerging markets. She has since moved into philanthropy as Global Director of Communications and Partnerships at Pharo Foundation, where she combines her private sector experience with her commitment to Africa’s economic and social development.
Research interests: philanthropy, economic development, education, international finance, news media
Region of focus: East Africa
Kara Blackmore Visiting Fellow
Kara Blackmore is an anthropologist, curator and writer working at the intersection of arts, culture and social repair after conflict. For more than a decade she worked with NGOs, governments, corporate entities, cultural institutions and local communities across East and Southern Africa.
Research interests: post-conflict reconstruction, arts, curation, local governance
Region of focus: UgandaEmail: K.A.Blackmore@lse.ac.uk
Naomi Pendle Visiting fellow
Dr Naomi Pendle has carried out ethnographic and qualitative research in South Sudan since 2009, with a particular focus on Nuer and Dinka communities. Naomi has advised the UK and US governments and researched for the ICRC.
Research interests: public authority, patterns of violence, local governance, political marketplace
Region of focus: South SudanEmail: n.r.pendle@lse.ac.uk
Paroma Bhattacharya Visiting Fellow
Dr. Paroma Bhattacharya is the Head of Social Innovation at LSE Generate. She leads Research and Programme Delivery in the domain of Social Innovation for LSE Generate, the Entrepreneurship Hub at the LSE (part of the LSE Research and Innovation Division). She is also a visiting fellow at FLIA, the LSE Department of Management and the LSE Social Innovation Lab.
Research interests: humanitarianism, anthropology, global health
Region of focus: Africa, Southeast AsiaEmail: P.Bhattacharya@lse.ac.uk
X: @Paroma
Ponsiano Bimeny Visiting Fellow
Dr Ponsiano Bimeny specialises in state formation from the perspective of violence, conflict and displacement with a focus on South Sudan and northern Uganda. He has previously worked for more than six years as a development professional in northern Uganda, where he grew up.
Research interests:development, humanitarian development, violence, conflict
Region of focus: South Sudan
Uche Igwe Visiting Fellow
Dr Uche Igwe is a political economy analyst, legislative scholar and communications expert with twenty years of practical experience working with parliament, government agencies, local and international NGOs, the media, research think tanks and the private sector.
Research interests: legislative ethics, anti-corruption, open government partnerships
Region of focus: NigeriaEmail: u.igwe@lse.ac.uk
X: @uche_igwe
Esther Marijnen Visiting Fellow
Dr Esther is a political ecologist working on nature-society relations in areas of armed conflict. She studies specifically the militarisation of nature conservation, processes of environmental change in violent environments and the intersection between geography, authority and war.
Research interests: conservation, environment, conflict, war, violence
Region of focus:Central Africa, DRCEmail: esther.marijnen@wur.nl
X: @Esthermarijnen
Maria del Pilar Lopez-Uribe Visiting Fellow
Dr Maria works at the intersection of Development Economics, Economic History and Political Economy, interested land, conflict, gender and social movements. She is Assistant Professor in at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá.
Research interests:development economics, political economy, applied microeconomics
Region of focus:Latin AmericaEmail: m.d.lopez-uribe@lse.ac.uk
Contact:LinkedIn
Cristin Alexis Fergus Visiting Fellow
Cristin Alexis Fergus is Lead Investigator for the LEAD Project and PhD researcher in the LSE Department of International Development, where she examines aspects of evidence for decision-making within global health.
Research interests:public health, global health interventions
Region of focus: UgandaEmail: c.fergus@lse.ac.uk
X: @FergusCristin
Nikita Simpson Visiting Fellow
Nikita is a Lecturer in Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. She researches, develops interventions, and provides policy advisory on mental health and inequality in India, Southern Africa, and the UK. Prior to joining SOAS, Nikita was a postdoc at the LSE, where she founded the Covid and Care Research Group.
Research interests: India, South Asia, UK, Southern Africa, Mental health, HIV, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Digital health, Feminist anthropology, Covid-19 pandemic policy
Region of focus: UK, India, Southern AfricaEmail: n.simpson@lse.ac.uk
X: @NiksSimpson
Liz Storer Visiting Fellow
Elizabeth Storer is currently a Lecturer in Health Geography at Queen Mary, University of London. She was previously a Research Fellow at FLIA (21-23) and continues to hold a Visiting Fellowship at the Institute. Elizabeth’s research, which has been funded by AHRC, ESRC and the British Academy, uses ethnographic methods to trace the connections between borders/ bordering mechanisms and health outcomes. She maintains active research connections to people and institutions in the West Nile sub-region of Uganda, but also conducts research in the UK context.
Research interests: health
Region of focus: Uganda and UK
Email: e.storer@lse.ac.ukX: @lizziestorer
Ryan Joseph O’Byrne Visiting Fellow
Dr Ryan O’Byrne researches the migration experiences of South Sudanese in Uganda and the international diaspora. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from University College London based on ethnographic fieldwork in South Sudan.
Research interests: migration, displacement, resilience, public authority
Region of focus: Uganda, South SudanEmail: r.obyrne@lse.ac.uk
Jonah Lipton Visiting Fellow
Dr Jonah Lipton is an anthropologist at LSE where he attained his PhD examining family life, work and coming of age among young men in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Jonah gained a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Oxford.
Research interests: political economy, urban neighbourhood life, crisis and humanitarianism
Region of focus: Sierra LeoneEmail: j.h.lipton@lse.ac.uk
X: @Jonah_Lipton
Dr Sophie Nakueira Visiting Fellow
Sophie Nakueira holds a PhD in Public Law and an LLM in Commercial Law, from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research lies at the intersection of law, criminology, and anthropology.
Research Focus: The governance of emerging threats: Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Tech impacts; cross-border mobility due to environmental impacts, the governance of vulnerable populations, governance in humanitarian contexts
Regional Focus: East Africa: Uganda and Tanzania and South Africa
Alice Robinson Visiting Fellow
Alice Robinson is a PhD student at the Department of International Development at LSE. Her doctoral research focuses on the histories and everyday practices of local NGOs in South Sudan and their role in humanitarian response.
Research interests: humanitarianism, NGOs, anthropology
Region of focus: South Sudan
Email: A.M.Robinson@lse.ac.uk
Ronak Gopaldas Visiting Fellow
Ronak Gopaldas is a political economist, "pracademic," writer, and speaker whose work focuses on the intersection of (geo)politics, economics, and business in Africa.
He is a Director at Signal Risk, a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and faculty at GIBS Business School in South Africa.
Costanza Torre Visiting Fellow
Costanza Torre is a Visiting Fellow at the LSE’s Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa and a Research Fellow at the Anthropology and Sociology Department at SOAS, in the Centre for Anthropology and Mental Health Research in Action.
Research interests: post-conflict reconstruction, mental health interventions
Region of focus: UgandaEmail: c.torre@lse.ac.ukX: @costi_torre
Jess Crombie Visiting Fellow
Jess Crombie is thought leader and innovator in the field of ethical storytelling, with over twenty-five years' experience creating some of the most innovative and award-winning content in the humanitarian sector.
Email: jess@jesscrombie.com
Dr Sipke Shaughnessy Visiting Fellow
Dr Sipke Shaughnessy works on responsible investing at British International Investment (BII), the UK’s bilateral development finance institution, directly supporting investments on risk, impact, and sustainability across frontier and fragile markets, with a particular focus on Africa.
Research interests: informal and grey economies, development finance
Region of focus: East and Central Africa
Charlotte Brown | PhD Candidate
Charlotte Brown is a PhD student at the Department of International Development at LSE. Her doctoral research focuses on the fractured mobilities resulting from humanitarian policies in Uganda.
Research interests: Humanitarianism, mobilities, gender
Region of focus: Uganda and South Sudan
X: @C_L_V_B
Flora McCrone Visiting Fellow
Flora McCrone is a political anthropologist and conflict specialist focusing on the Horn of Africa. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London. Flora has worked as a researcher and independent consultant in South Sudan, northern Kenya and Somalia.
Research interests:conflict, armed violence, public authority, political marketplace
Region of focus:Horn of AfricaEmail: floramccrone@gmail.com
Liz May | Policy Fellow
Liz May is a Policy Fellow with the Africa Trade Policy Programme at LSE Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa. She has over twenty-five years' experience in policy, research and advocacy work on international trade, development, environment, supply chains, business and human rights.
Research interests: International trade policy; the nexus between climate/environment, trade and development; trade and sustainable industrialisation; bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations; policy space for economic transformation
Region of focus: Africa
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