Sincere thanks from the DSA Council to our outgoing Student Representatives, Zechariahs Benapugha and Dr Sheila Ronoh. Their contributions have helped shape the DSA’s work, strengthen our community, and support the next generation of development studies scholars.

We would like to thank you all for the past three years of collaboration as we worked together to build a vibrant student community within the DSA. We held our last meeting yesterday at the DSA conference in Dublin which was very well attended with about 30 participants.

To highlight a few moments from our session, we began with a moment of reflection to honour the memory of Hamid Khalafallah, a valued and active member of the IDS PGR community. As mentioned during the meeting, Hamid’s family has set up an online space for friends and colleagues to share messages and memories. If you would like to leave a message, please feel free to do so.

We delivered a PowerPoint presentation in our meeting which also discussed the many ways the Development Studies Association supports and engages with the Postgraduate (PGRs) and Early Career Researchers (ECRs) community. This includes support for PhD student masterclasses at the annual conference, as well as a range of Early Career Researcher (ECR) initiatives. Please refer to the slides for more details and as always, keep an eye on our page on the DSA website for more upcoming events.

We are also delighted to introduce our new PGR/ECR representatives, Roxanne Tiemann from University of Bath and Tegan Hadisi from University of Oxford. We encourage student members you to give them the same wonderful support you have given us as they work with you to strengthen and shape the DSA PGR/ECR community we all want to see thrive.  Once again, Zax and I would like to say a big thank you to all of you. It’s been a pleasure working with such a wonderful community of friends. We will miss you, but we will still be around and involved in the DSA network, so I am hopeful our paths will cross again many times in the future. Until then, we wish you all the very best with your research and whatever comes next.

Sheila Ronoh.

“As Sheila and I come to the end of our term as Student Reps on the DSA Council, I would like to thank the Council and Student Body for their support, encouragement and engagement throughout our time in the role. Serving the community has been a privilege. Your ideas, participation and willingness to get involved have made the role fruitful, fulfilling and eventful, and I have genuinely enjoyed representing the interests of PGR/ECRs on the Council. I am confident that the excellent work we have started will continue as the baton is now passed to Roxanne and Tegan. I hope that, together, we will build on what has been achieved so far and accomplish even more in the years ahead.”

Zax Owutuamor