Maheshvari Naidu

Professor Naidu is Full Professor and an NRF Rated Scientist who has received both institutional and national recognition for her research. In 2013 she won a National Award from the Department of Science and Technology for Women in Science. She was the first person in the College of Humanities and the first woman at UKZN to obtain the PhD by Publication. She is widely published with work that cuts across multiples disciplines and is on the editorial Boards of the prestigious journal, Anthropology Southern Africa (Taylor and Francis) and Oriental Anthropologist (Sage). As a feminist anthropologist she teaches from a critical feminist perspective and is currently supervising a large cohort of Post-Doctoral Fellows, Doctoral and Masters Students. She has graduated 10 Masters and 11 Doctorates. She has been invited to offer teaching and research Seminars in many international institutions. She is currently Principle Investigator (PI) of a large five year Andrew Mellon funded Project on Spatial Humanities that will look at GIS and spatial mapping, as well as collaborating on an inter-institutional Gender Project funded by Ford Foundation with seven other SADC universities (University of Cape Town, University of Witwatersrand, University of Zimbabwe, University of Namibia, University of Johannesburg, Eduardo Mondle Mozambique and University of Botswana). She is committed to enhancing and nurturing strong academic scholarship among the pool of young Black African female scholars in the social sciences.