Initiative Afrique - Pooja Singh

Recording date: 02.07.2025. 

 Moderator: Djouroukoro Diallo. Production: Patricia Teixidor. 

 Music: Intro and outro: "Yadina" (xylophone duet). CD 1. MBUDI MBUDI NA MHANGA-NYMBO ZA WADODO. The Musical Universe of the Wagogo Children from Tanzania. ©PoloVallejo. Musical pauses: Free Music Archive. 

Pooja Singh – “The time is right for capacity building in Africa so we can take control of our scientific landscape

Pooja Singh is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Bern, where she works on the genomics of cichlid populations and speciation. She is an evolutionary biologist from Botswana, living and working in Bern for the past four years. Growing up surrounded by nature in Botswana inspired her to become a biologist and to explore how wildlife systems function.

She feels strongly about representing Africa as a scientist. For her, being an African woman in science is deeply meaningful, precisely because there are still so few. She suggested that Initiative Afrique could support African PhD students and postdocs in navigating the European and Swiss academic environment, as well as the funding landscape. “We need to create longer-term and permanent positions for African leaders at the University, because there are literally only a handful…”

She would like to play a larger role in promoting equitable research partnerships between Africa and the University of Bern.

 More info about her research here. 

Members of the Initiative Afrique community at the University of Bern (Switzerland) introduce themselves in a series of podcasts.