By: Dosunmu Paul

Dr. Kudus Oluwatoyin Abiola, a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, among others, won the 2025 African Studies Association Samora and Graça Machel Presidential Fellowship Award.

Dr. Kudus Abiola was selected alongside two other fellows, Eugenia Anderson from the Department of History and Political Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, and Khumisho Moguerane from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

The fellowship program seeks to encourage academic scholarship with a view to providing a better understanding of the African continent, while broadening professional opportunities within the field.

Dr. Kudus Abiola is an interdisciplinary scholar with research interests covering African migrations, including Africa-China mobilities, settlement and belonging, migration health, urban transformations, and knowledge production.

The award conferred on him were named in honor of former Mozambican leaders and activists, Samora and Graça Machel, for their commitment to liberation and humanitarian activism.

The fellowship program is an initiative of the African Studies Association, a society devoted to enhancing the exchange of information about Africa.

Based in the United States, the association aims to cultivate a better understanding of the continent by providing access to groundbreaking research and facilitating interdisciplinary exchanges with African scholars and institutions.

According to the African Studies Association, “fellows will attend the ASA Annual Meeting, visit U.S. institutions, collaborate with Africanist scholars, and present their research.”