Pembroke College Cambridge announces Surer Mohamed as new Harry Frank Guggenheim Research Fellow
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Research Fellowship was established at Pembroke College in 2011. It is a three-year award supporting post-doctoral research that increases the understanding of the causes, manifestations, and control of violence in the present world. Priority is given to candidates who make a compelling case for the relevance of potential findings for policies intended to reduce these ills. Ms Mohamed will be the third holder of the Fellowship, which is sponsored by The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in New York.
Lord Smith of Finsbury, Master of Pembroke College, said, “Surer is an outstanding scholar, doing ground-breaking research work on Mogadishu, and enhancing our understanding of the issues of violence and property rights in this important part of Africa. We will be proud to welcome her into our Pembroke Fellowship.”
“I am honoured and delighted to have been appointed as the next Harry Frank Guggenheim Research Fellow at Pembroke College,” said Ms Mohamed. “Taking up this Research Fellowship will allow me to contribute meaningfully to questions of political violence and its aftermaths in African urban spaces. My research specifically focuses on the politics of post-conflict urban reconstruction in Mogadishu, which is an under-researched part of the political landscape of Somalia. I hope that in pursuing this line of inquiry, I can make a scholarly contribution that centres how everyday Mogadishians understand their political lives and their intersection with violence.
“I would not be able to conduct this research without the generous support of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and Pembroke College. I am deeply grateful to the foundation for this opportunity, and I look forward to contributing to its work addressing issues of contemporary violence. I am also very excited to join the vibrant community of scholars and students at Pembroke College, and I look forward to contributing meaningfully to College life during my tenure.”
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation is a leader in creating and disseminating knowledge on the nature, consequences, and reduction of violence in its many forms, including war, crime, and human aggression. It is committed to funding scholarly research into the causes and amelioration of violence, especially urgent and contemporary problems of violence.
Daniel F Wilhelm, President of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, said “We are very pleased to honour Harry Frank Guggenheim’s legacy at Pembroke College with the research fellowship that bears his name. It is an essential opportunity to support rigorous scholarship on violence that has resonance both within and beyond the academy. Surer Mohamed’s work promises an important examination of the nexus of conflict, politics, and property in the Somali capital.”
The foundation was established in 1929 by Harry Frank Guggenheim (1890-1971). Mr Guggenheim, an alumnus of Pembroke College, was a business leader, diplomat, and newspaper publisher. He served in both world wars and later focused the work of the Foundation on problems of violence, believing that humanity had failed to match its progress in science, technology, medicine, and industry with similar improvements in human relations. After Mr Guggenheim’s death a bequest initiated the Foundation’s current programme of research grants to support distinguished and emerging scholars studying urgent matters of violence around the world.
More information about the Foundation’s work can be found on its website: https://www.hfg.org/.
All enquiries should be directed to the Master’s Office (master@pem.cam.ac.uk).
About Pembroke College
Founded in 1347, Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Its mission is to bring together the brightest students, from the broadest range of backgrounds; nurture outstanding research; provide the very best educational opportunities; and by doing so help to make a difference to the world.
Pembroke is a medium-sized Cambridge college and offers places in every undergraduate subject studied at the University. The letters patent granted to Marie de St Pol by Edward III provided for a house of 30 scholars. Today Pembroke is home to 492 undergraduate students and 309 postgraduate students. It has 75 Fellows, and the 54th, and current, Master is Lord Smith of Finsbury PC.
The College is a vibrant community, that believes academic success, comes not only from the excellence of teaching, and the leading research that underpins it, but also from a supportive and caring environment. It supports a wide range of academic activities including public lectures, seminars, conferences and visiting scholar schemes.