SAR announces 2025-2026 Mellon/SAR Academic Freedom Fellows

Thanks to the generous support of the Mellon Foundation and other valued partners, SAR is excited to introduce the 2025-2026 cohort of Mellon/SAR Academic Freedom Fellows.

The Mellon/SAR Academic Freedom Workshop and Fellowship program provides a research stipend and supportive professional community for researchers to develop and share related work on academic freedom and/or related higher education values leading to a publishable article; new course offering; workshop, webinar, or conference presentation; or other identified end product.

This year’s cohort hails from Chile, Greece, Indonesia, Kenya, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zambia, and has expertise in an array of academic fields, including law, sociology, gender studies, political science, human rights, history, education, and more.

Read about this year’s fellows and their research initiatives:

ASMA HEDI NAIRI

Sabancı University, Türkiye

Asma Hedi Nairi is a scholar and human rights researcher specializing in human rights, digital political discourse, and migration in the MENA region. She holds a PhD in International Relations and is currently a Visiting Instructor at Sabancı University, where she teaches on humanitarian mechanisms, INGOs, and critical communication. Alongside her academic work, she serves as MENA Regional Manager at the International Detention Coalition, leading regional advocacy on migration governance, detention, and rights-based alternatives. Her research bridges critical theory, digital ethnography, and discourse analysis, with particular attention to authoritarianism, populist repression, and the politics of knowledge production. She has published peer-reviewed work on racialized media discourse, digital satire, and democratic backsliding in Tunisia, including in The Journal of North African Studies and Communication Research and Practice. As a scholar with lived experience of state repression, she brings a grounded, decolonial perspective to questions of academic silencing, exile, and intellectual risk. Fluent in Arabic, French, English, and Turkish, her work is committed to producing engaged, accessible scholarship that connects academic inquiry with struggles for justice.

Silencing the Republic of Thought: Democratic Backsliding and Academic Freedom in Tunisia | This project examines the erosion of academic freedom in Tunisia amid democratic backsliding and the rise of populist authoritarianism following July 25, 2021. While Tunisia was long framed as the sole democratic “success story” of the Arab uprisings, recent years have witnessed intensified repression targeting civil society, journalists, migrants, and scholars and in particular those working on politically sensitive issues such as racism, migration, gender, and state violence. Academic freedom, rather than being formally abolished, has been hollowed out through judicial harassment, delegitimizing populist rhetoric, institutional pressure, and the normalization of fear and self-censorship. Grounded in both empirical research and the lived experience of academic researchers and scholars working in/on Tunisia, the project adopts a longitudinal approach spanning three political phases: the final years of the Ben Ali regime, the post-2011 democratic transition, and the current period of authoritarian consolidation. Methodologically, it combines quantitative analysis of social science and humanities publications (2005–2025) with in-depth interviews with scholars based in Tunisia, in exile, and in the diaspora, as well as editors and academic gatekeepers. By tracing how research agendas, publication patterns, and intellectual participation shift across political regimes, the project reveals how populist authoritarianism transforms knowledge into a contested terrain, casting critical scholars as “traitors” or “foreign agents.” More broadly, it positions Tunisia as both a case study and a warning: illustrating how fragile academic freedom becomes when nationalism, moral panic, and state power converge. The project aims to contribute to global debates on academic freedom by centering Global South experiences and foregrounding the affective, epistemic, and political costs of silencing critical thought.

CAROLYNE BUYA

Technical University of Kenya, Kenya 

Carolyne S. Mudeje Buya has a PhD from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. She is currently a full-time Lecturer in the Department of Liberal, Development and International Studies at the Technical University of Kenya. She is a philosopher and researcher whose work explores epistemology, ethics, gender, and African philosophy. Her research interest and publications focus on knowledge systems, individual development, moral responsibility, and gendered leadership in higher education. Some of her recent works include chapters in African Women’s Liberating Philosophies, Theologies, and Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and African Culture in the 21st Century (CUEA Press, 2024).

Gendered Dimensions of Academic Freedom: A Comparative Study of Faith-Based and Secular Universities in Kenya | The project examines how gender and institutional culture shape the practice of academic freedom in Kenyan universities. While academic freedom is widely upheld as a cornerstone of intellectual life and a marker of institutional autonomy, its realization can vary depending on context. In many cases, its exercise is mediated by implicit gender hierarchies, social expectations, and the unspoken norms that govern academic communities. These cultural and structural factors can influence who speaks, what can be researched, and which perspectives are legitimized within a learning institution. Consequently, academic freedom is not merely a legal or policy principle but a lived experience that is shaped by power relations and institutional ethos. Situating gender at the core of the analysis, the project demonstrates how women scholars negotiate academic environments structured by intersecting systems of authority, moral regulation, and institutional culture. It examines how these forces collectively shape the scope and character of women’s intellectual agency, influencing what forms of inquiry are legitimized and whose voices are granted space within the university context.Through a comparative study of faith-based and secular universities, the research explores how women academics perceive, experience, and negotiate their scholarly autonomy within different moral and administrative environments. The project seeks to uncover how governance systems, gender norms, and institutional values either constrain or enhance academic freedom. The findings will provide empirical insights into how gendered power relations influence higher education and will generate policy recommendations aimed at strengthening inclusive academic governance. On the whole, the project contributes to broader conversations on gender equity and academic freedom in African universities, advancing the vision of higher education as a space for intellectual independence, justice, and social transformation.

CHRIS MILLORA

Goldsmiths University of London, United Kingdom

Chris Millora is Lecturer and Assistant Professor in Education at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he also leads the MA in Social Justice in Education programme. His research explores informal learning and literacy in and through youth social action, including volunteering and activism, with a particular focus on the Philippines. His most recent project, Literacies of Dissent (2022–2025), funded by The Leverhulme Trust, was a youth-led participatory action research project examining how youth activists learn and create knowledge through social movements in the Philippines and Chile. Chris was lead researcher of the UN’s State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (2022) and the Global Campaign for Education’s Global Report on Youth and Student Organising during COVID-19 (2022). He also co-led SAIH-funded studies on the criminalisation of student dissent (2021) and university protection of student activists (ongoing). Chris holds a PhD in Education and International Development from the University of East Anglia UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation.

The Intellectual Lives of Student Activists: knowledge production in academic freedom movements in the Philippines and Thailand | Student activists in the Philippines and Thailand continue to experience what can be described as epistemological violence: powerholders portraying them as “inexperienced” or “non-knowledgeable,” urging them to “listen” rather than “speak out,” and, therefore, obscuring the intellectual labour involved in movement building. Building on my previous research and through interviews with youth and student activists and relevant stakeholders in the Philippines and Thailand, this project aims to understand the ‘intellectual lives’ of student activists: how do students (re)produce knowledge in, through, and across their movements towards academic freedom? How is this knowledge taken up, adapted, ignored, or contested within existing power dynamics by key stakeholders and powerholders in education? By focusing on the politics of knowledge production within student movements, this project reframes young people as thought leaders, radical thinkers, and serious visionaries. Making visible the intellectual lives of youth activists positions activism as integral – and not a distraction – to a vibrant educational and civic life. Findings will be disseminated through an academic article, a special issue proposal, and a webinar, aiming to inform more effective strategies for protecting academic freedom and providing policymakers and institutions with evidence on how to meaningfully engage student knowledge in decision-making.

COSTAS GOUSIS

University of Crete, Greece

Costas Gousis is a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Centre for the Humanities (RCH) in Athens and an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Crete, where he teaches courses on the sociology of migration. He completed his PhD at the University of Roehampton, London, in 2021 as an AHRC Techne-funded researcher, focusing on migrant activism in Greece. He has worked as a lawyer specialising in human rights and refugee law and has coordinated or participated in research projects at Panteion University, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the Eteron – Institute for Research and Social Change, and RCH. Since May 2024, he has served on the Management Committee of the COST Action Data Matters: Sociotechnical Challenges of European Migration and Border Controls (DATAMIG). He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic League for Human Rights, where he currently serves as General Secretary.

From Asylum to Surveillance: Greek Universities as a Case Study in Global Challenges to Academic Freedom | This project investigates how recent legislative changes affecting higher education in Greece, while presented as measures to “protect academic freedom,” have in practice undermined it through policing, surveillance, and disciplinary mechanisms. The study combines legal analysis with empirical research. A review of relevant legislation, parliamentary debates, and media narratives will be complemented by interviews with student representatives, faculty, researchers, and staff, aiming to document the impact of authoritarian policies on everyday academic life. Particular attention will be given to the abolition of university asylum, the criminalization of collective action, and the restriction of union freedoms. The project highlights the intersection of authoritarian measures and neoliberal reforms and examines forms of collective resistance that defend and reinterpret the democratic legacy of public universities today. By linking law, politics, and lived experience, this study positions Greece as a case study in the global challenges currently confronting academic freedom and the democratic functioning of universities.

OLGA CERAN 

Leiden University, Netherlands

Olga Ceran is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Leiden University (the Netherlands) and a
member of the AFITE project, “The EU Fundamental Right to ‘Freedom of the Arts and
Sciences’: Exploring the Limits on the Commercialisation of Academia”, led by Dr Vasiliki
Kosta. Her current research examines how academic freedom is protected across Europe,
with a particular focus on Article 13 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
Union (‘freedom of the arts and sciences’). Olga’s broader interests include comparative law, European human rights, and different approaches to the study of Europeanisation. She holds a PhD in Law and an LLM in Comparative, European and International Laws from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) as well as a Masters degree in law from the University of Wrocław (Poland).

The Linguistic Dimension of Academic Freedom: A Human Rights Analysis of Higher
Education in Europe | Language policies in European higher education have become increasingly contested. Once analysed mainly in reference to minority rights, they now intertwine with debates on internationalization and the rise of English-language instruction across non-English-speaking countries. Yet little attention has been paid to whether policies that require or restrict the use of foreign languages can, in some circumstances, violate academic freedom as a legal right. At the same time, recent court cases and regulatory debates suggest that the language of instruction is increasingly viewed not merely as a technical or linguistic-policy choice, but also as a tool for influencing educational content and institutional self-governance. Such measures may be driven by different actors and motivations but typically engage a complex matrix of legal rights and duties: the right to education, minority protection, the state’s linguistic identity, and – as now argued – academic freedom. This project maps out relevant legal claims, clarifies the scope and nature of the “linguistic dimension” of academic freedom, and shows how human rights may inform language laws and policies in Europe. The project will be realised in collaboration with Dr. Ihintza Palacin Mariscal (University of the Basque Country, Spain).

JACKIE PEDOTA

University of Texas at Austin, United States

Jackie Pedota is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines how educational access and opportunity are shaped within racialized institutional contexts and constrained by restrictive policy environments, revealing mechanisms that reinforce and reproduce racial hierarchies. Her scholarship has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, such as Educational Researcher and The Journal of Higher Education, and in news outlets like Inside Higher Ed. Before pursuing an academic career, she worked for over a decade across the P-20 educational pipeline, including roles in K-12 instruction, non-profit management, educational technology, and higher education administration. 

At the Edges of Academic Freedom: U.S. Faculty Engaging in Public Scholarship on Racial Equity Amid a Climate of Suppression | This descriptive case study examines how faculty engaged in racial equity–focused public scholarship navigate escalating state and federal threats to academic freedom and considerations of race in U.S. higher education. Across the country, universities face intensified scrutiny over how faculty, staff, and students engage topics of race, racism, and systemic inequity. State legislation, executive orders, and political pressures have sought to restrict classroom discussions, eliminate diversity-focused initiatives, and sanction faculty for public commentary on racial injustice. These pressures are even greater for public scholarship—like op-eds, community forums, art-based projects, media interviews, and social media engagement—which has long fallen into a gray area of academic freedom protections. Yet such scholarship plays a vital role in connecting academic knowledge to communities, shaping public discourse, and advancing racial equity. This study focuses on faculty working in some of the most politically restrictive environments, such as Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, and North Carolina, to examine how these scholars experience, navigate, and resist these constraints, offering critical insights into the limits of academic freedom in the U.S. Building on my prior research that positions racial equity as central to the contemporary defense of academic freedom, this project advances an expansive, equity-centered vision of academic freedom and offers strategies to better protect scholars at risk.

IRAM NASEER AHMAD 

Forman Christian College, A Chartered University, Pakistan 

Dr. Iram Naseer Ahmad is serving as an Assistant Professor and Head of the Department at Forman Christian College, A Chartered University in the Department of History & Pak-Studies. She is PhD in History from University of the Punjab. She won IRSIP Scholarship and spent one semester of her PhD at Arizona State University, USA, on visiting Exchange Scholar Program. During her PhD, she attended Winter Camp at Nanjing University, China. She has contributed a chapter entitled, “South Asia in Pursuit of Human Security; Challenges and Concerns in 21st Century” in the book “South Asia: State, Society and Politics”. She has contributed a chapter entitled “Socio-economic and political inequalities in Baluchistan; A Critical Appraisal” in the book “Equality and inequality in the Global World (1950-2020)” and contributed another chapter entitled “Deconstructing problematic of ethnicity vs nationalism; Pakistan A Case Study” in the book “Identity and Society in the Global World”, both works are near to publication. Her area of expertise is including foreign and domestic policy of Pakistan, Belt & Road Initiative and regional connectivity, Pakistan Relations with China, Modern Trends in South Asia like human insecurity, environmental challenges, economy, political and strategic conflicts in South Asia. She has edit a book volume, “Water Conflicts & Maritime Security Challenges in 21st Century Asia” which was published in 2024 by tab ediziono, Rome, Italy.

Academic freedom is fundamental to higher education, as it facilitates independent inquiry, critical debate, and the democratic production of knowledge. In Pakistan, however, social scientists face significant constraints that undermine academic freedom, primarily stemming from political sensitivities and persistent financial insecurity. Since the mid-2010s, repeated budget reductions and declining public research funding have diminished institutional autonomy, restricted research agendas, and heightened dependence on external donors. International organisations such as USAID, the British Council, and DAAD provide essential support, but their priorities often align with global development agendas rather than directly addressing Pakistan’s specific intellectual needs. These conditions force scholars to prioritise donor-driven, low-risk research and to avoid politically sensitive areas such as governance and accountability, highlighting how academic freedom is constrained. Public universities, including Punjab University, Karachi University, and the University of Peshawar, experience critical resource shortages that lead to administrative gatekeeping and self-censorship. Although private institutions such as LUMS and FCCU have more stable finances, they too are influenced by donor agendas. This study examines how funding structures control research directions, deepen inequalities, and ultimately weaken the social sciences’ ability to serve Pakistan’s academic and societal needs.

MAUREEN SOMPA

University of Zambia, Zambia

Maureen Sompa is a Lecturer in the Department of Language and Social Sciences Education at the University of Zambia. Maureen Completed her Ph.D in Educational Studies from University of the Western Cape, South Africa in 2024. She holds a master’s degree in education, in particular, Civic Education, from the University of Zambia. Maureen’s areas of work and research focus on peace and conflict, policy analysis, higher education, governance, human rights, political science, and academic freedom.

The Politics of Knowledge Production: Academic Freedom and Postcolonial Challenges in Zambian Higher Education | This study seeks to examine the impact of academic freedom on knowledge creation and the broader decolonization efforts, analysing its experiences, disputes, and shifts within the Zambian higher education system. To gather diverse perspectives on academic freedom, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with academics, administrators, and policymakers to collect data. Focus groups with postgraduate students will add depth to the research by showing how early-career academics view and handle the challenges of open inquiry and knowledge creation. Additionally, analysing regulatory frameworks, university statutes, curricula, and public statements will reveal the formal and structural aspects of academic freedom. The significance of this research is to enhance scholarly discussion on academic freedom in Zambia by providing a perspective rooted in local context, which is often missing in international conversations mainly shaped by Western experiences.

RAFIQA QURRATA A’YUN

Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

Rafiqa Qurrata A’yun is an assistant professor at the Department of Criminal Law, Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia and an associate at the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS) at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne. She completed her PhD at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne, in 2024. She is also a senior researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Law and Economics (CIRCLE) at the Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia, and the Coordinator of International Cooperation of the Indonesian Campus Workers’ Union (Serikat Pekerja Kampus, SPK). Rafiqa was an Asia Study Grants scholar of the National Library of Australia (in residence from July to August 2024). She was also a recipient of the 2022 Biennial Postgraduate Conference Awards from the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) and the 2021 Australia Awards Hadi Soesastro Prize from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Her research interests include law and politics, law and religion, legal reform, Indonesia’s criminal law, academic freedom, democratisation and Islamist politics. Rafiqa is the author of Law and Politics of Blasphemy in Indonesia, published by the Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia series in 2026.

Defending Academic Freedom through Unionisation at the University | This research explores the potential for unionisation within higher education institutions (HEI) as an alternative approach to strengthening collective action in addressing challenges to academic freedom. Threats to academic freedom often arise from government officials, business entities, and university managers, manifested in the suppression of dissent and the political-economic control over knowledge production. It argues that the union movement within the higher education sector holds significant potential to bolster ongoing advocacy efforts, particularly in addressing the challenges posed by political and economic elites, as well as university managers. This potential lies not only in its commitment to democratic values and human rights but also in its strength derived from widespread mass-based support, especially among university workers. Focusing on Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, this research addresses the following questions: What are the patterns of restrictions on academic freedom in Indonesia’s democratic context? How has the existing advocacy approach dealt with issues related to academic freedom? What role can unions in the higher education sector play in strengthening the advocacy of academic freedom in Indonesia?

SAMANTHA NISSEN

Northwestern University, United States

Samantha Nissen is a director for strategic initiatives and undergraduate programs at the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University and an adjunct faculty member with the university’s International Studies Program. Samantha completed her Ph.D. in Comparative and International Development Education from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2025. In her research and practice, she is interested in issues of student agency, belonging, and success in higher education, particularly as they intersect with social, geopolitical, and educational inequalities.

Teaching and Telling the Truth: Journalism Education and Student Press as Sites of Academic (Un)Freedom | This project takes up collegiate journalism education and student media as sites where academic freedom is exercised and also actively contested, constrained, and misunderstood in the United States. While academic freedom is typically framed around concepts like institutional autonomy and faculty research and speech, journalism educators, collegiate media advisors, and student reporters also experience its boundaries in material ways—through editorial restrictions, surveillance, retaliation, and other threats. Using a multi-sited case study approach, this project explores how this phenomenon is unfolding in the current political environment in particular for non-citizen students and educators, and what that might imply for journalistic, academic freedom, and mobility possibilities in the United States.

VICTOR BELTRAN

Universidad Diego Portales, Chile 

Victor Beltran Roman is an adjunct researcher and law professor at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile. He holds a law degree (J.D. equivalent) from Universidad Diego Portales and is completing his Ph.D. in Law (ABD) at the same institution. Victor earned an LL.M. and is currently pursuing an S.J.D. at Wisconsin Law School. Before beginning the S.J.D., he was a Fulbright Research Scholar at University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was affiliated with the Global Legal Studies Center. His research focuses on criminal procedure, police–prosecutor dynamics, and wrongful convictions.

Navigating Institutional Openness: Academic Inquiry and Police Institutions in South America | This project examines how scholars in South America engage with police institutions and how institutional cultures, levels of openness, and perceived risks shape academic inquiry. While research on policing is essential in democratic societies, access to these institutions remains uneven and is often shaped by historical legacies, political contexts, and organizational practices. In said context, the study explores how researchers navigate these conditions, adapt their work in sensitive environments, and respond to institutional dynamics that influence the production of knowledge.

 

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