Ellison Tjirera

Ellison Tjirera holds an MA in Sociology from the University of Namibia (2012) and is currently a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Namibia (UNAM). He joined V-Dem as a Country Coordinator for Namibia in 2013. Tjirera has been a Research Associate at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) since 2009 when he co-authored Not Speaking Out: Measuring National Assembly Performance and later went on to complete research on Gender and Parliament commissioned by the government and the UNFPA. He has contributed to several IPPR briefing papers dealing with corruption-related issues in Namibia. Ellison joined the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) as a PhD Fellow in July 2013. His academic interests include urban sociology/studies, post-apartheid societies, parliamentary democracy, gender studies and governance issues.