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Yu-Syuan Syu (Ipiq Matay) is currently an MPhil student in Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS. Her research focuses on the Truku weaving culture revitalisation movement among the Truku weaving practitioners within the broader context of global heritalisation of Indigenous culture and Taiwan’s Indigenous recognition.

Issa Diro is a PhD candidate in the Department of Finance and Management at SOAS University of London. He serves as a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant (PTA) at SOAS. He also delivers workshops and training sessions for students both locally and internationally. His research focuses on fiscal policy, fiscal federalism, taxation, and public finance in fragile and post-conflict states, with a particular emphasis on East Africa.

Dongzhu Xu is a PhD candidate in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. His research examines the political economy of mineral wealth and poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with broader interests in critical minerals, new institutional economics, conflict dynamics, the resource curse and development in the Global South.

Thomas Summers is a PhD candidate in African Studies in the department of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics. His PhD thesis, titled "Digital Swahili: Tracking Language Innovations in Tanzanian Swahili from 2013 to 2023 on X", analyses a corpus of circa 11,000 X posts (circa 120,000 individual lexical units) to find patterns in use and spread of linguistic innovations. His research interests include: African languages in digital spaces, Swahili language and culture, Tanzanian minority languages and the wider East African community.

Ilyas Khan, School of Arts, Doctoral Student studying Music and interested in investigating whether Music has meaning. He will examine this by looking at the music of two prominent 20th century artists and composers, John Coltrane (Jazz) and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Sufi/Qawwali) and link this back to the work of 19th century Music critic and philosopher Eduard Hanslick

David is a PhD researcher in Development Studies focused on regional models for refugee protection in East Africa

Miki Hosaka-Green is a doctoral researcher in Japanese Studies focusing on Japan inspired Western theatre performances, as well as working full time as a game localisation project manager.

Gwawr is a doctoral researcher in the Centre for Human Rights Law at SOAS. She is also an experienced barrister, with a practice spanning research, legal advice and advocacy in both domestic and international human rights contexts.

Raydolph Renault is a Doctoral Researcher at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, specialising in the sources for reconstructing pre-Islamic Arabian religion within the broader context of Late Antiquity and Near Eastern mythologies.