By Dr. David Mwambari

Dr. David Mwambari is amongst the 397 early-career researchers who won the prestigious and highly competitive European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants (valued at € 1.5 Million). Dr Mwambari’s ERC project is titled: "Traveling Memories, Silences and Secrets: Life narratives of Violence Among Refugees from Africa’s Great Lakes Region (AGLR)". The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organization for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe.

Dr. Mwambari is a USIU-Africa alumnus (BA. International Relations, Class of 2007 and MA. International Relations, Class of 2009) and former Assistant Professor of International Relations in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at USIU-Africa. During the 2009 Commencement Ceremony, Dr. Mwambari received a Community service award for his service to the USIU-Africa community.

Currently, Dr. Mwambari is a lecturer of African Security and Leadership Studies at the African Leadership Centre in the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy at King’s College London, UK. He is also a Colleborateur Scientifique, IACCHOS at Université Catholique Louvain (Belgium).

Dr. Mwambari's research interests include memory politics, peace, and security in East and Central Africa as well as among Afro-Diaspora communities in Europe, North America, and South America.

His publications have appeared in internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals, including African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review, Memory Studies, African Affairs, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, The Journal Leadership of Leadership and Developing Societies, and Qualitative Research. He is a co-editor with USIU-Africa faculty (Dr. Elijah Munyi and Dr. Alex Ylönen) of a volume: Beyond History: African Agency in Development, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield International (2020).

He has also contributed to various debates in international media such as on Al Jazeera, The Elephant and African Arguments. He is a sought-out speaker at international conferences and events. He also serves on different boards of academic institutions in South and East Africa, Europe and North America.

He started out as a self-funded student at USIU-Africa then later received many international scholarships and grants. Dr. Mwambari always takes pride in being an alumnus of USIU-Africa, as it is the University that gave him the “education to take him places.”