What kind of doctoral research on, in and with Africa takes place at King’s College London? How do our students critically reflect on the benefits and challenges of research in the continent?

As part of Africa Week 2025, The Africa Research Group hosts an annual PhD forum to answer these questions and more with a showcase of some of the latest PhD work on Africa from across the College.

The event takes place in person and features presentations by King' students from various departments and academic disciplines. They will introduce their PhD research – from the early stages to near completion – with the opportunity for feedback and interaction with the audience.

This event is free and open to all.

The event will feature the following presentations:

Jennifer Dickson - Divided Politics: The Analyses of Ethnic Rivalry in West and Central Africa and the Role of Grand Competition

Chibueze Pipi - Calculating Resource Extraction in Colonial Nigeria, 1900-1960

Oluremi Abati - Limitations to Technology Accessibility and their Socioeconomic Impact on Visually Impaired Music Producers in Africa

Anni Domingo - Exploring Identity and Authenticity in the Novel ‘Ominira’: A Creative Journey through Black Victorian Narratives

Eric Charles - Crossing the Mungo River of History: A Literary Motif in Anglophone Cameroonian Literature

Aadil Bouhlaoui - The ‘Knowledge Dome’: Training Large Language Models (LLMs) to Prevent and Reverse Muslims Digital Extremist Indoctrination

Eleanor Gray - Precarity, adaptation and humanitarian resilience: a cultural geography of health and wellbeing on the frontline of the climate crisis in Chad

Mathilde Lyons - Examining the African presence in Fascist Italy, 1922-1945

Maísa Edwards - Bridging Continents: Diplomatic and Defence Cooperation in the South Atlantic via the ZOPACAS'

About the chair

Dr Flavia Gasbarri

Dr Flavia Gasbarri is Senior Lecturer in War Studies Education, member of the core team of the Centre for Grand Strategy and co-Chair of the Africa Research Group. She holds a PhD in War Studies from King's College London and worked as Teaching Fellow (2015-2019) in the KCL Department of War Studies after the end of her doctoral studies, covering a broad range of courses on politics, history and diplomacy. She was also appointed Teaching Fellow in the Defence Studies Department at the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) in Shrivenham from January-July 2015, where she worked as Academic Tutor for the British Armed Forces (both at junior and senior level). In 2018-2019, she was Academic Tutor at The Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS).

Dr Flavia Gasbarri's research and main publications focus on the end of the Cold War in the Third World, the development of post-Cold War US foreign policy and US-Africa relations. She has also extensively researched and published on US policy in the Rwandan genocide and in the Great Lakes region.

About the panelists

Eric Charles

Eric Ngalle Charles is a Cameroonian writer, poet, playwright, and human rights activist based in Wales. A PhD researcher at King’s College London, he was awarded a Creative Wales Award Fellowship in 2017 for his work on migration, trauma, and memory. His autobiography, I, Eric Ngalle: One Man’s Journey Crossing Continents from Africa to Europe (2019), was published by Parthian Books. He was selected as one of Jackie Kay’s best British BAME writers in the Guardian poll as a writer with a unique theatrical voice. Eric also sits on boards at the Aberystwyth Arts Advisory Board and edited Hiraeth Erzolirzoli: A Wales-Cameroon Anthology (2018). The 3 Molas (2020) is an anthology about Cameroon and Wales. His poetry Collection Homelands Seren Books (2022) was published in April.

Anni Domingo

Anni Domingo is an Actress, Director, and Writer, working extensively in Radio, TV, Films and Theatre. She trained at Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, later obtaining two more BA degrees and an MA at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. She has worked in America, Europe, Africa, Australia and in many theatres around UK including The National Theatre. Anni works regularly as a Theatre Director and currently lectures on Drama and directs at Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, Royal Central College and at Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her poems and short stories are published in various anthologies and articles in various newspapers. An extract from her debut novel Breaking the Maafa Chain is in the New Daughters of Africa (2019) anthology edited by Margaret Busby. Breaking the Maafa Chain was published in September 2021, by Jacaranda Books, UK and Pegasus Books, USA in 2022. Her first screenplay, Blessed Assurance has just been filmed and will be out next year. Anni is now working on her second novel Ominira as part of her PhD at King College London

Chibueze Pipi

Chibueze Pipi is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at King’s College London. His research focuses on uncovering and analyzing extractive economic practices in colonial Nigeria, with the aim of quantifying their impact and value. Chibueze is interested in the means through which free labour, mining, prospecting, taxation and exporting raw materials contributed to resource extraction in during Nigeria’s time as a protectorate of the British Empire, 1900-1960. More generally, his research interests are the economic nature of colonial governance, the impact that colonialism had on British West Africa, and the economic history of colonialism. Chibueze completed his undergraduate degree in History and Politics at the University of Sheffield before getting his MA in International Political Economy at King’s College London.

Jennifer Dickson

Jennifer Dickson is a current PhD student at King’s College in the War Studies Department. She is pursuing her research in West and Central African countries such as Nigeria, the Central African Republic (CAR), Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Her dissertation topic is analysing Russian influence in West and Central African ethnic groups. She has done recent design plans for her fieldwork in Ibadan, Nigeria; Kinshasa and Goma, DRC; Bangui, CAR, and Kyiv Ukraine. Additionally, she is a retired U.S. Army Special Operations veteran and has over 10 years of military strategy and planning experience with the U.S. Department of Defence.

Eleanor Grey

Eleanor Grey is currently undertaking a doctoral studentship as part of the London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership, with King’s College London in collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Her current research explores the intersections between health and humanitarianism in the context of the climate crisis in Chad. She has worked with MSF since 2006, most recently as anthropology advisor based in the Manson Unit at MSF UK. She has worked in a range of contexts including Central African Republic, South Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Haiti, India and Uzbekistan on issues including Ebola, sexual violence, HIV/TB, urban and occupational health, and access to health care. She holds an MA in medical anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London).

Oluremi Abati

Oluremi Abati is a fourth year PhD candidate. His area of research is the accessibility of digital audio workstations. As part of his research inquiry, Oluremi conducted research in Sierra Leone during which he explored how socioeconomic limitations impact on digital audio workstation accessibility for visually impaired people in the country. He has presented papers at different conferences including in New Zealand. He is also a singer, songwriter, and music producer. His latest production was a five track EP titled From Lagos, released on major digital platforms.

Aadil Bouhlaoui

Aadil Bouhlaoui is a Moroccan-born, Italy-raised researcher specializing in digital counter-extremism and AI-driven self-deradicalization, with a background in Islamic studies, private security, and counter-terrorism volunteering. His early education in Islamic sciences at Dar Al-Quran in Marrakech and later in Italy laid the foundation for his peacebuilding efforts, including serving as an imam and co-founding a mosque. After moving to the UK in 2008, Aadil gained experience in private security and volunteered with the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism unit. He earned a BA in Islamic Studies, focusing on the Islamic perspective on antisemitism, and an MA in Terrorism, Security, and Society from King’s College London, examining Muslim involvement in counter-terrorism in non-Muslim-majority countries. Currently pursuing a PhD in Digital Humanities at King’s College London, Aadil researches the use of Large Language Models and AI tools in preventing and reversing online radicalization, antisemitism, and harmful practices cloaked in misinterpreted religious narratives. As a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Religious Studies, he fosters interreligious dialogue while actively engaging in initiatives to strengthen British Muslim-Jewish relations. Through his research and community work, Aadil champions education, technology, and cross-cultural harmony.

Mathilde Lyons

Mathilde Lyons is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews where her research aims to examine the everyday experiences of Black people who lived in Italy during the Fascist period, an era when Italian national identity was constructed and operationalised by the state as exclusively white. Her doctoral research is funded by the Wolfson Foundation Postgraduate Humanities Scholarship. Before her PhD, she undertook an MPhil at the University of Bristol where her research looked at fascist constructions of mixed-race identities in Italian East Africa between 1933 and 1940.

Maísa Edwards

Dr Maísa Edwards holds a Joint International Relations PhD from King’s College London (KCL) and the University of São Paulo. Her doctoral research focused on Brazil, the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic (ZOPACAS) and the South Atlantic region. She has an MSc Brazil in Global Perspective from KCL and a BA(Hons) French and Spanish from University College London. Maísa is an Hourly Paid Lecturer and Graduate Teaching Assistant at KCL, and was formerly the Senior Policy Researcher at the think-tank ResPublica and the Lifelong Education Institute. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Maísa has a profound interest in multilingual and multicultural literature. Since February 2021, she has been running the 'Talk Books With ME' (@talk_books_with_me) project on Instagram, where she shares her love of books and engages with a global literary community.

About King's Africa Week

Hosted by the African Leadership Centre and Africa research group, Africa Week is an annual celebration of research, education and outreach activities on Africa.

King's Africa Week brings together academics, researchers and students from across King's – and offers the opportunity to hear from African scholars, leaders and thinkers. It also showcases King's collaboration with African universities and partners.

Find out more about Africa Week