BIEA Kenya, Board

Prof Catherine Ndungo

Chair

Prof Catherine Ndungo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kiswahili at Kenyatta University. She holds a PhD in African Oral Literature. Her thesis was on” The Images of Women in African Oral literature with special focus on Kiswahili and Kikuyu Proverbs. She also holds a Masters degree in Linguistics and African Languages.  At this level, she wrote a thesis on” The Historical Change in the Portrayal of Women in Different Historical Periods. Prof. Catherine Ndungo was formally the Associate Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Previously she was the Director, Institute of African Studies. She was the founder Chairperson of the Department of Gender and Development Studies. She has published widely in her area of Scholarship. She is also a member of many professional bodies such as Association of African Women for Research and Development, Organization for Social Science Research for Eastern Africa among others. She is the Chairperson of British Institute of East Africa  

Professor Gabrielle lynch

Vice President for Research

Gabrielle Lynch is a Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Warwick. She is the author of over 30 articles and book chapters, and author or editor of five books, including I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya (University of Chicago Press, 2011) and Performances of Injustice: The Politics of Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Kenya (Cambridge University Press, 2018). She is the Deputy Chair of the Review of African Political Economy, and wrote a regular column in Kenya’s Saturday Nation (2014-2018) and The East African (2015-2017). Gabrielle participated in the BIEA graduate attachment scheme in 2003, joined the BIEA Council as an elected member in 2010, and was appointed Vice President/Research in 2019. 

Mr Vinod Mandavia

Treasurer

Vinod Mandavia was IT Director for a Mobile Phones and Sim Card distribution company since 1999. He started his career in Accounts and progressed his way through to the post of IT Director. He spent last 8 years developing and managing a bespoke Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution for the Company before his retirement.

After retiring from the commercial world in June 2022 Vinod joined BIEA as Honorary Treasurer.

Dr Kennedy Gitu

Kenya Country Director

Gitu is a historian with a background in Anthropology and Archaeology. His research interest is in demographic history, pastoral economies, mobility and settlement; resource access, exploitation and conflict. His ongoing projects at the BIEA are on urban herders within the margins of Nairobi city, and on the demographic dynamics and resources conflict in the Amaya Triangle of north Central Kenya. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Pau and Pays de l’Adour. He has worked on many historical, archaeological and anthropological research projects in Eastern Africa, but with a special interest on pastoral economies and landscapes in Kenya. He is at the BIEA on ‘loan’ from the Department of History, Archaeology and Political Studies, Kenyatta University.

Dr Rachel Ibreck

BIEA Director

Dr Rachel Ibreck joined the British Institute in Eastern Africa as Director in 2024. She is also Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Visiting Senior Fellow at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa. Rachel’s research explores strivings for justice, memory and rights in conflict and crisis settings within East Africa, and among refugees from the region. It considers the practices of multiple authorities, laws and actors, and local agency in relation to international interventions and norms, based on ethnographic, collaborative action, and archival approaches. Her projects include co-investigator on the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo-funded Traces of Mobility, Violence and Solidarity, Reconceptualizing cultural heritage through the lens of migration (2022-2025), hosted at the University of Milan. She is a co-editor of the Journal of Genocide Research. Her publications include a book, South Sudan’s Injustice System: Law and Activism on the Frontline (Bloomsbury, 2019), and articles in academic journals such as The Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, International Political Sociology, Memory Studies, Journal of Civil Society and African Affairs.

Professor Karuti Kanyinga

Karuti Kanyinga Research Professor of Development Studies at the Institute for Developent Studies (IDS), University of Nairobi.  He is an accomplished development researcher and scholar with extensive national and international experience. He has published extensively and is renowned for his contributions to scholarship and knowledge in governance and development. Karuti’s research and publications include seminal work on: ethnicity and development; devolution and development; and electoral politics and development. This is in addition to commissioned studies on governance, justice, law and order sector reforms. The publications include:Kanyinga, Karuti (2016). Devolution and New Politics of Development in Kenya. African Studies Review,Vol. 59, No. 3, 155-167. Kanyinga, K. 2014. Kenya: Democracy and Political Participation. A Review by AfriMap, Nairobi: Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa, and the Institute for Development Studies, 2014: Kanyinga, K and Okello, D. 2010. Tensions and Reversals in Democratic Transitions: the Kenya 2007 General Elections’.Nairobi: SID/IDS; ‘The Legacy of the White Highlands: land rights, ethnicity, and the post-2007 election violence in Kenya’ In the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 27:3,325-344, 2009; and Kanyinga, K. 2000. Redistribution from above: The Politics of Land Rights and Squatting in Coastal Kenya. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute

Dr Fred Nyongesa

Dr. Ikanda is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Maseno University in Kenya. He received his doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 2014 and has published widely on refugee and forced migration issues based on his fieldwork at the Dadaab camps. His article on “Somali refugees in Kenya and social resilience” (in African Affairs) won the 2019 Taylor & Francis Commonwealth Scholars Best Journal Article Prize (BJAP) and the 2020 Stephen Ellis Prize. Dr Ikanda has served as the chairman of Sociology and Anthropology department at Maseno University and currently sits on various school and hospital boards. He is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board at AFRICA/IAI.

Professor Rosemary Okello

Rosemary Okello-Orlale is a well-recognized communication, media and gender expert, writer, editor, quantitative Data analyst who finds interest in public policy, education, making data work for public good arts, culture and creating African narrative. She has experience in academic, philanthropy, technical skills, data journalism, media, governance, civic community, management and leadership skills as well as diplomacy, advocacy, fundraising, training, communication strategy, mentorship and coaching expertise.

She has a track record of working with donor communities, multilateral organizations, media organizations, government, academia, professional bodies, development agencies, private sector, consultancy agencies, civil society, non-governmental and faith-based organizations, in a global and changing world.

Currently she is the Director of Africa Media Hub at Strathmore University Business School whose mission is to enhance access to quality, relevant, accessible, timely data, business and financial information which involves not only building skills but enhancing partnership with governments and decision-makers. She also heads the newly launched Strathmore Data Analytics Centre (SADAC) focused on driving Data analytics education, productivity, applied research, and product commercialization on data driven practices for African businesses. Previously she was a Program Officer on Civic Engagement and Government; Creativity and Free Expression and Advancing Public Service Media Initiative at the Ford Foundation Eastern African office.

She has supported efforts to promote the public media sphere as a platform to give voice and visibility to marginalized people, as well as to add diverse perspectives to everyday struggles for social change while simultaneously transforming alternative media into a critical and cohesive voice of civil society. And she also a Founder and Executive Director of African Woman and Child Feature Service- a Media NGO.