Pretty Abraham is a PhD candidate in Religion and Social Transformation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her research lies at the intersection of religion, gender, peacebuilding, trauma, and decoloniality. Her doctoral research examines the role of indigenous religious beliefs and practices in healing conflict-related trauma among women in post-conflict societies, exploring culturally grounded approaches to psychosocial recovery. Her research interests include indigenous religions, trauma and memory studies, gender and religion, peacebuilding, reconciliation, and African spirituality. She is particularly interested in exploring locally grounded approaches to healing and the ways in which religious and cultural resources contribute to post-conflict recovery. Her work is informed by engagement with communities and civil society initiatives in Zimbabwe focused on peacebuilding, gender justice, and social transformation. Through her scholarship, she centres indigenous knowledge systems, lived experiences, and African epistemologies in conversations on trauma healing, reconciliation, and social transformation. She seeks to amplify the voices and experiences of women survivors and contribute to academic and policy discussions on trauma healing, social justice, sustainable peace, and decolonising knowledge production.

Ronald M. Bafana is a PhD scholar in Sociology at the University of Pretoria. His interdisciplinary academic journey spans Development Studies, Environmental Science, and Education. He holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where his research explored the socio-economic impacts of protected areas on local communities. Ronald has lectured Political Ecology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and contributed as a Research Assistant on a UNICEF-funded project at the Centre for Rural Health. His professional experience includes environmental program coordination, youth empowerment, and civil society engagement. Ronald’s research interests lie at the intersection of sustainable development, environmental justice, and community resilience. In addition to his academic work, Ronald is also a passionate creative. He produces visual and conceptual art part-time through Afro-Life Art, a platform that celebrates African artists and connects them to the market. He brings to the fellowship a strong background in participatory research, program implementation, and academic mentorship—anchored by a deep commitment to advancing socially engaged scholarship on the African continent

Edward Govere is a PhD candidate in Migration and Displacement and a doctoral fellow at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

His doctoral research, "The Intersection of Migration and Disability in South Africa: A Critical Perspective on Policy and Practice," examines how migration and disability intersect to shape access to services, social inclusion, and policy implementation in South Africa. Through this work, he seeks to advance scholarship on migration and disability while contributing to evidence-based policy and practice.
Edward holds a Master of Arts in Migration and Displacement and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from the University of the Witwatersrand.

He has extensive experience in qualitative research, programme evaluation, and policy-oriented research, having worked on projects addressing migration, health, disability, and social inclusion in Southern Africa.
His publications include collaborative work with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on migration, disability, and migrant health governance.

His broader research interests include migration, disability studies, public health, social policy, human rights, and inclusive development in Africa.

Tammy-Lee Lakay is a researcher and doctoral candidate in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of the Western Cape. Her doctoral project, “A History of the South African Committee for Higher Education’s Labour and Community Resources Project: Radical pedagogy and people’s education in the 1980s and 2020s," is an examination of the Labour and Community Resources Project and how Critical Pedagogy emerged within SACHED, the most prolific anti-apartheid education NGO of its time. This research builds on the traditions of revisiting liberation archives and reframing South Africa’s liberation history. She is also a Researcher on the SACHED Archiving Project, which is a collaborative endeavour of UWC and Wits, where she contributes to the preservation and digitisation of liberation-era educational materials. Her work blends archival research, oral history, and public scholarship, and she is passionate about making histories of resistance accessible to broader audiences. She has a deep interest in heritage work and serves on the South African Museums Association of the Western Cape Committee as Vice-Chair.

Sheron Mathlatse Masekoameng is a Researcher Support professional within the Institute for Health and Social Sciences at the University of South Africa (UNISA). She holds a Master of Arts in Psychology and is currently pursuing doctoral research in the Department of Psychology at UNISA, focusing on motherhood, reintegration, and child custody among formerly incarcerated women in South Africa. Her professional experience spans monitoring and evaluation, academic research, teaching, and scholarly publication. She has contributed to research projects addressing social justice, community development, and psychosocial wellbeing, and has developed expertise in qualitative research methodologies. Sheron’s research interests include correctional research, parenting and family reintegration, education, gender and sexuality, river management, environmental sustainability, and multispecies studies. Her work is grounded in a commitment to understanding the intersections between social, environmental, and justice-related issues. She has published three articles in international peer-reviewed journals and has presented her research at local and national conferences. Her academic achievements include receiving Master’s and Doctoral bursary in 2020, as well as being a recipient of the UNISA Council Bursary in 2017 and 2018.

Kamvalethu Miza is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. Originally from Mdantsane township in the Eastern Cape, he completed his Bachelor of Social Science, Honours, and Master of Social Science degrees at UCT. His doctoral research examines the everyday experiences of food delivery riders and explores how platform technologies, urban space, race, masculinity and precarious labour shape worker’s lives.

Miza is a social researcher with experience in qualitative and quantitative research, ethnographic fieldwork, and policy-oriented analysis. He previously worked as a Field Researcher and Research Assistant at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), where he contributed to research on livelihoods, gender-based violence, masculinities, poverty, and social inequality in urban and rural South Africa. As part of this work, he presented research findings at the Anthropology Southern Africa Conference, Walter Sisulu University Research Day, and policy engagement forums involving government stakeholders. He also served as a Research Intern at the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, conducting policy research and analysis in support of legislative processes.

Miza has also tutored sociology, political studies, social research methods, and academic writing at UCT. His research interests include labour, livelihoods, inequality, gender, and qualitative research methodologies.

Sasha Claude Rai is enrolled in the History Department at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research, “What We Do in the Shadows: The History of the Unorthodox Erotic and Kink Culture in twentieth-century South Africa” examines the relationship between morality, sexuality and state control in southern Africa. Her research interests also span the intersections of feminism, race, religion, and sexuality, and she has worked on questions relating to eugenics, bioethics, artificial intelligence, and the histories of law, medicine, sexuality, and decoloniality. She has previously published on Islamic feminism and the Pakistani diaspora. She has been a recipient of the Open Society University Network Short Term Mobility Fellowship, under which she taught and presented her research at Bard College in New York State. She has likewise received funding from multiple distinguished institutions, such as the Social Science Research Council, the Ivan Karp African Critical Inquiry Programme, the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, and the French Research Institutes Abroad programme. She currently serves as a Sessional Lecturer in the History Department, as a Senior Tutor in the Engineering faculty at Wits, and as an adjunct academic in the History Department at the University of South Africa.

Ibukunoluwa Kikelomo Akinola is a Ph.D Candidate at the Institute of African and Diaspora Studies (IADS), University of Lagos. Her research examines how climate change is reshaping the availability and diversity of medicinal plants in Nigeria’s forest reserves and what this means for African Traditional Medicine and community health resilience. Working across Nigeria’s rainforest and derived savannah ecological zones, she employs a mixed-methods approach to investigate the effects of climate change on traditional healing systems that remain a primary source of healthcare for many rural and low-income communities.

Akinola holds a Master of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Lagos and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of Nottingham. Her interests include African socio-political philosophy, climate justice, environmental ethics, bioethics, gender and decolonial thought. She has published in Wellcome Open Research and the Asian Journal of African Studies and has presented at international conferences, including the Oxford Global Health and Bioethics International Conference and the World Congress of Bioethics. Ibukunoluwa is a selected participant in the AFRETEC UNILAG Doctoral Academy 2.0 by Carnegie Mellon University Africa. She has contributed as a research assistant on EU-funded PAID project in Nigeria and other projects linking culture, health and community.