After a liberal arts and sciences degree from Utrecht University and M.Phil/D.Phil degrees from the University of Oxford's Department of International Development, I worked at QEH as a research officer on the Abuja project of the Islam Research Programme (IRP). With this interdisciplinary background, I currently research and teach development and African studies at Leiden University College (LUC).

My research revolves around two themes. First, I study institutional innovation in African governance, particularly in Nigeria. Think, for example, of the implementation of sharia law in northern Nigeria, the way chiefs collaborate with vigilantes to promote security, or the use of indigeneship certificates to govern citizenship. I’m interested in the trajectories of such innovations as well as their (often very uncertain) impacts.

Second, I co-lead the Learning Mindset project, supported by the Netherlands Higher Education Award 2022, in which we focus on developing educational tools that utilise reflection to promote student autonomy. I try to address these themes through mixed-methods, fieldwork-based research (thus far in Nigeria and the Netherlands). I also host the Africa Knows podcast that spotlights African intellectuals.

In my teaching, I try to communicate my own curiosity for ‘big’ questions and motivate students to discover where their own intellectual interests and commitments lie. I believe in the ‘liberating’ power of education and, to that end, try to make students think more autonomously about development’s complex problems.

At Leiden, I also supervise PhD research on African governance and on educational innovation; and, supported by ICM/Erasmus+, I actively try to facilitate mobility of staff and students between Europe and Africa. I am co-chair of the Leiden African Studies Assembly and affiliated to the University's African Studies Centre and LUCIS. I also coordinate the Nigeria Research Network.