We host postdoctoral fellows from South Africa and around the world. Postdoctoral fellows spend between one and three years at SCIS, undertaking cutting-edge research and participating in the intellectual life of SCIS.
Dr Brenda Mwale is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. She holds an LLD in Cyber Terrorism Law from the University of Pretoria, and her doctoral research analyzed how African states regulate and respond to cyber terrorism. Her work focuses on the governance of digital technologies, with particular emphasis on cybersecurity, counter-terrorism, cyber warfare, and digital platform regulation. Her current research examines digital platforms and the digital economy, with a specific focus on the evolving nature of labour and employment within these systems.
Neo Letswalo is a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS). He is also an External Programme Support Consultant for the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD). He has served in several roles, including most recently as a Research Associate for Digital Policy at the 4IR and Digital Policy Unit at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Assistant at the T20 Digital Transformation Task Team and the African Policy Research Institute’s “Africa’s Digital Policy Agenda” project. He co-authored a book titled Township Economic Mistakes in 2021 and published several articles on greenwashing, climate aid finance, digital transformation, great power politics, cyberwarfare, and digital sovereignty.
Dr. Angella Ndaka is a Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholar with a PhD in Sociology and Gender Studies from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and a Master of Public Policy in policy analysis from the Australian National University. Her expertise lies in Sustainable AI, Human Technology Interaction, and the sociotechnical systema of AI and emerging technologies, particularly in economy, education and agri-food systems. She also has experience in systems strengthening for Gender and youth transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Southern Centre of Inequality Studies (SCIS)University of the Witwatersrand, she co-leads the 6th domain on Sociotechnical Systems and Human Technology Interaction, situated in the SDDE project. She has also been researchingon AI economy, gender dimensions of AI, economic foresight of technology and the future of work for marginalized African youth. Angella has worked with global and regionalinstitutions including FAO, Centre for Epistemic Justice Foundation, Shortlist Professionalsand Athena Infonomics in driving inclusive AI strategies, policy frameworks and interventions. Her thought leadership in user-centred, equity-driven AI has earned her global recognition, including the 2023 Women in AI (APAC) Cultural Leadership Award, a spot among the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics and the 19 incredible women shaping AI in Africa. She is a passionate advocate for co-designed, sustainable AI grounded in economic and social equity, policy relevance, and local context.
Dr Mbuso Moyo is a postdoctoral fellow in the Climate Change and Inequality project. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Johannesburg. His research was on youth unemployment, aspirations and development in the Royal Bafokeng Nation, a ‘traditional community’ that has carved for itself a lofty position as a ‘successful’ platinum mining community in South Africa’s North West province. His work interrogates the political economy of mining, extractivist accumulation and the various modes of popular resistance it has engendered in coal, copper, platinum, and lithium mining host communities in the global South in general and sub-Saharan Africa in particular. Moyo’s work amplifies the point that mining operations undermine rural communities' access to, and rights over, land resulting in land enclosures. The just energy and digital transitions, Moyo believes, hold the promise for mine host communities for as long as appropriate industrial policies are crafted to engender structural transformation and employment creation. Moyo’s current research activities include: a. collecting fragments or artefacts of the situation through photographic recordal of the mining operations, and their impact on the environment, and livelihoods in coal, platinum, and lithium mining host communities in Zimbabwe; b. building a digital archive of the unfolding situation; and c. collecting and analysing material about industrial policy and the legal frameworks on mineral exploitation and beneficiation.
Dr Courtney Hallink is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. She recently completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Courtney also holds an MSocSci in Sociology from the University of Cape Town and a BA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Toronto. Courtney’s scholarly work explores the intersections between work, unemployment, social policy, and race, gender and class stratification. She is particularly interested in examining the ways in which the historical institutionalisation of social citizenship reproduces stratification in the (post)-colonial present. Courtney’s work is theoretically grounded in social reproduction theory; race and capitalism; critical whiteness studies; and the racial state.