People & Partners

Merin Raju Jacob is a junior researcher whose work focuses on infrastructure and governance. As a researcher and project manager, Merin is involved in projects that span Africa’s Urban Transition and the Just Energy Transition (JET), the most significant being the SARChI Chair project on Urban Innovations – a multi-year, multiphase NRF funded project, and Capacity-building for the JET in Africa. Merin is one of the convenors for the Just and Sustainable Urbanisms module within the CST’s PGDip in Sustainable Development, focussing on  “Science Fiction and the African future”, which draws from her master’s thesis on the “Future city of the Global South” using African science fiction to reimagine the future.

Merin is a member of the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN) steering group, the Chairperson of the SHF working to understand homelessness, and co-founder of the Africa Week Network using the art of gathering to celebrate Africa’s future. In 2024, she was awarded the Social Impact Award for her work with the advocacy group, the Stellenbosch Homelessness Forum (SHF), from Stellenbosch University.  She forms part of international working groups on the intersection of Art and Sustainability: Co-imagining resilient and sustainable African futures through arts-based practices supported by the Southern African Resilience Academy (SARA), and Art and Sustainability a thematic group within the STRN.

She has worked at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) where she served an integrative function and addressed fragmentation using whole-of-society methodologies to address problems such as wildlife crime, disaster management, and food security. Merin holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Future Studies which led her from design and engineering into complex systems.