The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) has appointed Professor Edward K Kirumira as its new director, who succeeds Professor Hendrik Geyer.
Professor Kirumira is professor of sociology, and outgoing principal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Makerere University in Uganda.
He studied at the universities of Makerere and Exeter, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and obtained his PhD in Sociology from Copenhagen University in collaboration with Harvard University.
He specialised in population and reproductive health, and has done extensive interdisciplinary research on HIV/AIDS, emergent diseases and international health issues, health-seeking behaviour, poverty and rural-development studies.
Professor Kirumira has carried out consultancies and technical assistance in programme development and project design, management and evaluation in many African countries including South Africa, as well as the United States, Mexico, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
Professor Kirumira said: “I want to bring to STIAS a passion for scholarship, but also a passion for situating that scholarship within an institutional structure.
“I come from a position of building higher education institutional capacity from both an academic and administration view. If you don’t have good governance it’s difficult for scholarship to flourish,” he said.
“It’s also a place for upcoming, young scholars to test their ideas. I’m excited and look forward to be part of a space that allows somebody to have these opportunities.”
