Following on the recent four (4) year appointment as member of the International Scientific Committee of UNESCO’s Slave Route Project, Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah has been appointed Senior Research Associate, Department of Fine Art, Rhodes University. The appointment which was approved by the University Senate and Council, is an honorary one facilitated by the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI). 
 
Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah who joins a strong cadre of researchers, artists and cultural actors working toward achieving the goals of SARChi and the Department of Fine Art, will help to strengthen links between Jamaica and South Africa. The South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) is a national knowledge and human resource development intervention, led by the Department of Science and Technology and managed by the National Research Foundation (NRF). The honorary appointment as Senior Research Associate extends from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2020 - a period of three years.
 
Dr. Stanley Niaah is the inaugural Rhodes Trust Rex Nettleford Fellow in Cultural Studies and lectures in Cultural Studies at The UWI’s Institute of Caribbean Studies and Reggae Studies Unit where she now serves as Director. She is a cultural expert and consultant who has been teaching and researching Black Atlantic performance and festival geographies, Caribbean popular culture, and Cultural Studies more broadly, for many years.