To follow up on her 2016 Fulbright project in Botswana, Thea has been awarded a 2018-2019 Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship. The fellowship will take her to Grahamstown, South Africa to work with collaborators at Rhodes University and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB).
There are two parts to the project – one related to research and the other to mentoring young scientists.
For the research part, Thea will be working with Professor Olaf Weyl, Principal Scientist at SAIAB on ecotoxicology questions related to Okavango fishes.
At Rhodes University, Thea will be running a professional development and mentoring workshop for graduate students. Her workshop follows the Entering Mentoring platform developed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) along with material Thea developed for the UF-HHMI GATOR program at the University of Florida, in collaboration with Alison Roark and Lou Guillette. The workshop will contribute to ongoing capacity-building activities at Rhodes University.