Diana’s research centres on comparative judicial politics, judicial diplomacy, and the role of regional courts in Africa’s integration and development agendas. She has explored questions of judicial empowerment, informal practices in researching legal and judicial elites, and the broader political influence of REC courts within Africa’s interacting markets.
Her work speaks to scholars and practitioners interested in international courts, African politics, and the everyday politics of law and regional integration.
Current Project
This project investigates how civil society actors in East Africa use regional courts to challenge escalating cross-border repression and protect human rights. Focusing on the East African Court of Justice and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, it examines how activists and lawyers mobilise litigation, build transnational legal alliances, and engage with judicial diplomacy to reshape human rights protections under conditions of autocratisation
Finalised Research Project
Focusing on the East African Court of Justice, the project drew on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and case analysis to reveal how judges navigate a strategic space between governments, regional integration agendas, and citizens, advancing broader debates on international adjudication and courts under pressure. Resulted in featured book on home page.
Finalised Project (Employed as Research Associate, Predoc)
Investigated how African states’ multiple, overlapping memberships in regional economic communities create tensions, obstacles, and opportunities for regional integration, especially in Eastern and Southern Africa. I investigated the power of regional judges with a particular focus on judicial appointment politics
Postdoctoral Grant Recipient,
Bavarian Gender Equality Grant for Women in Academia, €24,000 (02/2025)
Graduate Student & Early Career Grant Recipient,
Law and Society Association (LSA), San Juan, Puerto Rico, $750 (05/2023)
Mobility Grant & PhD Training and Competition Winner, SGroup Universities in Europe, €1,000 (10/2022)
National Science Foundation Travel Grant,
IPSA, Comparative Judicial Studies, Georgetown University, U.S.A., $1,000 (08/2022).
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Scholarship,
University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa, €5,000 (02/2016)
“Interdisciplinary Studies of International Law,” iCourts/PluriCourts PhD Summer School, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (06/2021)
“Applied Social Network Analysis,”
ECPR Winter School, University of Bamberg, Germany (02/2020)
“African Studies: Methodologies,”
Summer School, Université de Sousse, Tunisia (10/2019)