Researcher & Applied Anthropologist

I am a doctoral researcher in anthropology and educator, with a focus on maternal health, data governance, digital archives, and the ethics of care in Southern Africa. My research draws on multi-sited ethnographic engagements in Southern Africa and Western Europe to interrogate how fragmented technologies and artificial intelligence reproduce bias, shape health systems, and influence social imaginaries. As an educator, I share these insights with university students, guiding them to critically engage with questions of data, knowledge, and innovation while also preparing them for professional work contexts in Southern Africa. My broader interests lie in human-centred innovation and in rethinking how technologies and archives can be democratized for marginalised communities.

About
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My anthropology, cultural, and development studies have fascinated me with paradigms and tools supporting better livelihoods. I’ve immersed myself in research, technology and entrepreneurship spaces to think about how products can be better designed for people. My research on AI, data governance, and care ethics in Southern Africa bridges anthropology with technology, offering practical insights for designing more inclusive health systems, guiding innovation in startups, and informing policy on equitable digital infrastructures. Various grants and institutions, such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Mozilla Foundation, IFAS, and Margaret McNamara, have supported my research on AI’s relationship with Southern African communities.

Research

AI, Care, and Medical Materialities in Southern Africa

My doctoral project investigates how digital technologies are reshaping maternal healthcare in Zambia. Through ethnographic work with a mobile clinic and telemedicine startup, I examine how innovators design digital tools, build patient datasets, and apply AI in prenatal care. The research also traces the startup’s trans-border relationships and how these networks inform the hegemonic underpinnings of emerging health technologies. Building on my earlier ethnographic work on early childhood in Zimbabwe, the project situates maternal and child health within a broader regional and historical context, demonstrating how care practices travel and transform across different contexts. It further explores the challenges of generalised datasets, strained health infrastructure, and the ways institutional archives echo today’s data practices. Linking these dynamics, I demonstrate how technologies intersect with everyday practices, materials, and relationalities of care, contributing to debates in digital anthropology, medical materiality, critical data studies, and the ethics of evolving healthcare.

Teaching

Guiding students to think across borders, disciplines, and futures.

I pursue an inclusive and context-responsive approach to teaching, drawing on my experiences in South Africa, Zambia, and with U.S. study-abroad students. I invite students to engage critically across disciplines, such as anthropology, public health, and development studies, at institutions such as CIEE, the University of Zambia, and the University of Cape Town. Grounded in ethnographic methods and theoretical inquiry, my classroom emphasises interdisciplinarity, co-creation, and intellectual stewardship. Students explore complex intersections such as developmental paradigms, inequities, information ethics, and algorithmic decision-making using multiple modes of learning and assessment that support diverse voices and challenge exclusionary frameworks.

Public Engagement

Past:

Read

Challenges of AI in Maternal Healthcare: Lessons from Zambia

A reflection on the potential of AI to diagnose high-risk prenatal conditions, but its limitation when narrowly relying on biomedical markers and variables for datasets in communities presenting broader treatments and indicators outside of biomedicine.

Incomplete Chronicles: Unveiling Data Bias in Maternal Health

Artificial intelligence (AI) advancements in healthcare rely on diverse, high-quality data. This report examines Dawa Health's AI integration into its maternal healthcare services in Zambia, exploring biases in datasets and technology. Ethnographic research highlights how DawaMom app users navigate its design, revealing gaps in meeting the unique needs of underrepresented expectant mothers in Southern Africa.

Ukusebenzisa i-Artificial Intelligence Kwezentuthuko: Ukufaka Izindimi Zase-Afrika

Indatshana echaza ukuswelakala kwamazwi esayensi awesiNdebele okudingakala ukwandisa imicabango exhumanisa izindimi zethu ezifundweni zesayensi.

An article that explains the lack of scientific terminology in Ndebele and the need to expand on scholarship that links African languages to scientific studies.