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Simukai Chigudu appointed Associate Professor of African Politics

We are delighted to announce that Simukai Chigudu has been appointed Associate Professor of African Politics at ODID and Fellow of St Antony’s College.

Dr Chigudu is currently a Departmental Lecturer at ODID. He takes up the position formerly occupied by Raufu Mustapha, who sadly passed away in August 2017.

‘To say that this appointment is an honour would be a terrific understatement’, he said. ‘Given the hostile and precarious nature of the academic job market, I feel blessed to have landed a secure position in a cosmopolitan and vibrant department where I have unrivalled freedom to follow my intellectual passions.

‘Moreover, through this position, I succeed the inimitable Professor Abdul Raufu Mustapha whose tragic death last year is a loss — to Oxford specifically and African intellectualism more generally — that is too great for words. I can only hope that in the years to come, I will follow Raufu's path and chart a scholarly trajectory of such breadth, relevance and originality’. 

Dr Chigudu completed his DPhil at ODID in 2017 on the politics of Zimbabwe’s 2008-09 cholera outbreak.

His academic background is eclectic; he received training in Medicine at Newcastle University, Public Health at Imperial College London and African Studies at the University of Oxford.

He previously worked and conducted research in Zimbabwe, Uganda, The Gambia, Tanzania and South Africa. Prior to taking up his studies at Oxford, he worked as a medical doctor for three years in the UK’s National Health Service.