African Centre for Cities’ Sophie Oldfield, who holds the University of Cape Town and University of Basel Professorship in Urban Studies, has been named the 2018 Distinguished Africanist Scholar by the Institute for African Development at Cornell University (IAD).

Each year, IAD, in collaboration with an academic department, sponsors a Distinguished Africanist Scholar visit to Cornell University during the fall or spring semester. The Scholar, in support of IAD’s mission to expand the depth and quality of teaching on Africa within the University community, is expected to bring to Cornell a depth of knowledge and experience in an academic field specifically related to development in Africa.

Oldfield was nominated by Professor Neema Kudva of the Department of Planning at Cornell for her work as both a scholar of urbanism and as “someone who is pushing for the collaborative generation of urban knowledge –though university and community engagements…”

During the visit, she will do a public lecture as part of the long-standing Department of City and Regional Planning Colloquium, participate in two classes ( Urban Transformations in the Global South and Introduction to Planning History and Practice) and participate in informal conversations on service learning and the generation of knowledge through community collaboration with two faculty groups.

Oldfield, who was pleased to accept the award, will be visiting in the northern hemisphere Fall semester.