RYVU PROJECT TEAM
MATT
Prof. Matt Bailie Smith, Northumbria University
Principal Investigator
Professor Matt Baillie Smith is an interdisciplinary global development academic, with particular interests in the relationships between civil society, citizenship and development. His work focuses on volunteering in humanitarian and development settings, young people as development actors and environmental citizenship. As well as being Principal Investigator of Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda (RYVU), he is also the co-lead of Volunteering Together, a collaborative research project with VSO on the ways different volunteers work together in Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda; and is Northumbria lead of the Capabilities and Academic Policy Engagement project which is exploring ways to better connect academics and policymakers. He previously worked for a development NGO and continues to work in partnership with a range of national and global development organisations. This work includes co-designing and delivering research projects, acting as a critical friend to organisations and work to help build research and data collection and analysis capacity within development organisations and the groups they engage with. He was also co-author of the IFRC Global Review on Volunteering, Research Director of the Volunteers in Conflicts and Emergencies Initiative with the Swedish Red Cross, and has published on issues including South-South volunteering, volunteering and citizenship, volunteering and gender, as well as on civil society activism, development education and NGO engagement strategies. At Northumbria, Matt is co-director of the Centre for International Development and director of the Global Development Futures initiative.
PETER
Prof. Peter Kanyandago, Uganda Martyrs University
Co-Investigator
Professor Peter Kanyandago holds a PhD from the Catholic University of Louvain. He is one of the founder staff of Uganda Martyrs University (UMU) where he worked for 22 years until February 2016, before later rejoining as a Research Fellow. In UMU he served in different capacities including being Deputy Vice Chancellor for 11 years, Director of the School of Postgraduate Studies, and Director of Research. Peter Kanyandago has researched and published in different areas but focusing on the importance of taking African cultures as partners in discussing issues related to Christianity, development, and ethics. His research has also focused on the effects of external factors on African cultures and worldview. In particular, he has investigated the negative influence of Westernisation/Modernisation and negative evangelisation on Africa and how these can be seen as root cause of violence in Africa. He believes that African problems can only be solved if we get home grown or endogenous solutions and approaches. He has done some work for international organisations including UNESCO, World Council of Churches, and the International Federation of Catholic Universities, where he is currently a member of the Administration Board responsible for research. For five years, he was a member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Indigenous Knowledge Systems of the Department of Science and Technology of the government of the Republic of South Africa. He is actively engaged in research and use of African endogenous knowledge and science, especially of African medicine.
SARAH
Prof. Sarah Mills, Loughborough University
Co-Investigator
Professor Sarah Mills's research explores the geographies of youth citizenship, informal education and volunteering. Prof Mills has completed ESRC-funded research on these themes, most recently on the UK Government's National Citizen Service youth programme, for which she was called to give evidence at the House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement. She is the co-editor of Politics, Citizenship & Rights (Springer, 2016) and Informal Education, Childhood & Youth: Geographies, Histories, Practices (Palgrave, 2014). She received the Royal Geographical Society’s Gill Memorial Award in 2017 for ‘outstanding early-career research in cultural geography’ and she is a recipient of the AAG’s Political Geography Speciality Group’s ‘Outstanding Research Award’ (Virginie Mamadouh Publication Prize). She is a Co-Editor of the international and multidisciplinary journal Geopolitics and a former Chair of the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Geographies of Children, Youth and Families’ Research Group.
FRANK
Dr. Frank Ahimbisibwe, Mbarara University of Science and Technology
Co-Investigator
Dr. Frank Ahimbisibwe is a Senior lecturer in the fields of human rights, conflict and peace studies, international relations, diplomacy and refugee studies. He serves as the Acting Head of Department, Department of Planning and Governance, Institute of Interdisciplinary Training and Research (IITR) at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) as of August 2013. He has been a lecturer at MUST since 2007, and his primary research and teaching interests include refugees, disaster preparedness and management, regional security, peace building, human rights and human security in the Great Lakes region of Africa, and democratization in Uganda, among many others. Frank has received numerous fellowships and research grant awards, and has studied in Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. He was a visiting lecturer in the Department of Peace and Development Studies, Linnaeus University, Sweden and Department of Political Science, Lich University, South Sudan. He has facilitated partnerships between MUST and other universities.
CUTHBERT
Dr. Cuthbert Tukundane, Uganda Martyrs University
Co-Investigator
Dr. Cuthbert Tukundane is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Uganda Martyrs University. He received his PhD in Behavioural and Social Sciences from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He also holds a Master’s degree in Development Economics and a Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies. His research interests are in the areas of skills development, youth and the labour market, social exclusion/inclusion, action research and livelihoods management. He has published several papers in international journals and book chapters on the subject of youth, education and work. In 2019, Cuthbert completed a specialised Scholars’ programme on Youth, Workforce Development and Closing the Skills Gap at the University of Montana in the United States.
BIANCA
Dr. Bianca Fadel, Northumbria University
Co-Investigator
Dr. Bianca Fadel is a Research Fellow in the Centre for International Development at Northumbria University and joined the RYVU team as a Co-Investigator in 2021. Her PhD research analysed identity and belonging in local volunteering experiences during protracted crises, particularly in the case of Burundi, in East Africa. She has also been involved in policy-focused projects with volunteer organisations including Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), the United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV) and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Bianca also holds a Master’s in Humanitarian Action and has previously worked as advisor for humanitarian diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brazil. Her experience also involves the implementation of local youth and community engagement volunteering projects in Brazil.
MOSES
Dr. Moses Okech, Uganda Martyrs University
Post-doctoral Researcher
Dr. Moses Okech is an international development professional with over 15 years’ experience in research, lecturing and livelihoods programming. He previously served as the technical coordinator for economic recovery and development at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Uganda and has conducted a number of development consultancies that include The World Bank, Overseas Development Institute, GIZ, CRS and Bank of Uganda, among others. His professional background includes working on financial inclusion with Equity Bank, CARE International and lecturing at Leeds Beckett University in the UK. Moses holds a PhD in political economy of development from Leeds Beckett University (UK), a Master’s in international development management from the University of Bradford (UK), a postgraduate diploma in project planning and management from Uganda Management Institute and a BA Hons. (Social Sciences) from Makerere University.
ROBERT
Dr. Robert Turyamureeba, Mbarara University
Post-doctoral Researcher
Dr. Robert Turyamureeba has over 14 years of experience as an academic and practitioner. He holds a PhD in Management Sciences, and two Master’s degrees in Development Studies and Peace and International Security. As an academic he has taught and mentored students at various academic institutions such as Mbarara University (Uganda), African Leadership Centre (Kenya), University of Juba (South Sudan), Virtual University (Uganda), Durban University of Technology (South Africa) and Bishop Stuart University (Uganda). As a practitioner and particularly in the field of refugees and humanitarian development, he was a refugee youth engagement expert coordinator for FHI360/UNICEF overseeing UNICEF’s youth activities in both Rhino camp and Nakivale refugee settlements. Before that, Robert was the country director for Research Oasis Africa Ltd.
AISLING
Dr. Aisling O’Loghlen, Northumbria University
Co-Investigator
Dr. Aisling O’Loghlen was a Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Global Challenges based in the Centre for International Development at Northumbria University from 2018 to 2020. Her research interests include the concern with the distinctive ways governance arrangements in a particular city inform displaced groups’ spatial distribution and experiences of vulnerability in cities of the Global South. Her academic research to date has focused mostly on sub-Saharan Africa. Aisling received a James-Watt Scholarship to complete her Ph.D. in Urban Studies which examined the vulnerabilities of urban displaced populations in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She also worked as a project manager on research projects related to urban profiling of displaced populations in Afghanistan, in addition to working as a consultant for various humanitarian agencies including RedR UK. Aisling was a Co-Investigator in the RYVU project from 2019 to 2020.
OWEN
Dr. Owen Boyle, Northumbria University
Project Officer
Dr. Owen Boyle joined the RYVU team in 2021 to support the project management activities. He has an academic background in human rights law and completed his PhD in this area at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. As a practitioner, Owen has worked as a consultant for the private sector and international organisations in Sweden, Denmark, South Africa and Australia.