Research Team

Professor Imraan Valodia, an economist, is Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate, Sustainability and Inequality, and Director of the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits).

His research interests include inequality, competition policy, employment, the informal economy, gender and economic policy, and industrial development. Imraan has played a central role in establishing and leading the SCIS. He is recognised nationally and internationally for his research expertise in economic development.

Julia Taylor is a Researcher on Climate and Inequality at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. Previously, she was Researcher and Climate Policy Lead at the Institute for Economic Justice where she worked with labour unions on a vision for a Just Transition. Julia has previously worked at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator on impact and research, sustainability consulting, and eco-education. She holds a BCom from the University of Cape Town, a PGD in Sustainable Development from Stellenbosch University, and an MSc in Environment and Development from Edinburgh University. Julia recently completed a Master’s in Applied Development Economics at Wits University.

Katrina Lehmann-Grube is a researcher on the Climate Change and Inequality Project at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. She holds a BSc in Applied Biology, Ecology and Evolution from the University of Cape Town and an MSc in Environment, Politics and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). She is currently completing a PhD in Sociology at Stellenbosch University. She has worked in a range of civil society and research roles at the intersection of environment and social justice.

Dr Mbuso Moyo is a postdoctoral fellow. 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.

Nishal Robb is a Researcher on the Climate and Inequality Project. Prior to joining SCIS, he worked as an Economist at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) and the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at UJ, and as National Training and Organising Coordinator at Equal Education (EE). Nishal has an MSc from SOAS, University of London, and BA Hons (Economic History) and BSocSci (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) from UCT. He has done research on a range of topics including the history of South Africa’s clothing industry; the financialisation of South African firms and implications for structural transformation; illicit financial flows and industrial development in South Africa; and agrarian change and the South African maize value chain.

Sonia Phalatse is an economist with experience in the private and public sectors. Previously, she worked as the Economic Justice Lead for the largest women’s rights organisation in Africa, the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET). Prior to that, she worked as a researcher concurrently in the Climate, Energy and Infrastructure and Feminist Economics programmes. She has a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Witwatersrand and received both her Bachelors and Honours degree in Economics from the University of Cape Town. Her research interests are in feminist economics, feminist political ecology, energy economics and the role of the state in development.

Research Assistant at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, where he works on the G20, climate change, and inequality. An Emancipatory Futures Studies scholar, he earned an MA in International Relations from Wits, producing decolonial research on the impact of war on the environment in Gaza. His research interests include decolonial thought, the entangled impacts of war on human health and the environment, and research integrating qualitative analysis with remote-sensing methods (NDVI and SAR). As an activist, he has promoted food sovereignty at Wits through the Climate Justice Charter Move. ORCID