Project Team
Grant Masterson
Project Director (EISA)
Grant Masterson is a political governance specialist with 15 years of experience in the areas of African governance, international development, politics, capacity building and training, and election observation. Grant is the Head of the Governance Institutions and Political Processes (GIPPs) programme at EISA. He has managed complex, multi-country programs for international donors since 2004 within the southern and east African and Horn of Africa regions, and has extensive experience working with pan- African and regional organizations such as the African Union (AU), Southern African Development Community (SADC). He is trained in data collection methods for cross national comparative and analytical purposes, and has aggressively championed the greater use of technologies in the collection and analysis of data in the political governance field. He is responsible for the overall project management of this study.
Anne Pitcher
Project Director (Michigan)
Anne Pitcher, Professor of Political Science and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan has nearly 30 years of experience engaging in field work, conducting surveys across Africa, and sustaining partnerships with Africa based universities and scholars to promote social research. She has undertaken research and published extensively on several post conflict countries such as Mozambique, Angola, and Uganda and on countries associated with episodic election-related violence including Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. She has served as an election observer not only in African countries but also most recently in the USA. She is a former co-editor of African Perspectives, a series at the University of Michigan Press. More information can be found on her website, http://annepitcher.com.
Rod Alence
Associate Professor (Wits)
Rod Alence is Head of the Department of International Relations and Coordinator of the MA program in E-Science at Wits. He has collaborated with EISA on several research projects and was Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan in 2008-09. He manages Wits student participation in the data cleaning, archiving and analysis processes, and provides technical and statistical support to the project, specifically with respect to the methodology and sampling processes.
Peter Carroll
Peter Carroll is a political science Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Michigan. His dissertation focuses on economic vulnerability, clientelism, and the impact of mobile technology on political dynamics in East Africa. He has been a collaborator on several field experiments in Uganda and Tanzania, including Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded research investigating the impact of women’s phone ownership. He has analysis and field research experience, having previously held research positions at Innovations for Poverty Action-Tanzania, the Center for African Development at the College of William and Mary, Policy Research for Development (REPOA) in Tanzania, and the Political Economy and Development Lab (PEDL) at Brigham Young University.
Celso M. Monjane
Celso Monjane is an Assistant Professor in the School of Governance, at Joaquim Chissano University. He has over eight years of research experience (including consultancies) examining governance in Africa, particularly with regard to the business interests of elites and the political economy of natural resources. He has a promising record of scholarly publications in several academic journals on the politics and international relations of Africa. Celso holds a Ph.D from Roskilde University in Denmark and a Master’s degree in Governance from Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique. He has also completed postgraduate courses in Applied Data Science at the University of the Witwatersrand and advanced statistical modeling at the 2020 and 2021 ICPSR Summer Program at the University of Michigan.
Melanie Meirotti
Melanie Meirotti is a freelance consultant working in the African governance and development space. Previously, she was the Programme Officer in the Governance Institutions and Political Processes Programme at EISA. She has research experience in African governance and security and has a specific interest in participatory governance and the state-citizen relationship. Her most recent research has been into issues of state capture, social cohesion and inclusion. She holds a degree in International studies and Political Science from the University of Pretoria. In 2011 she was awarded a Chevening Scholarship by the United Kingdom government, enabling her to study for a master’s degree in Governance and Development at the University of Sussex.