Lincoln University Wins Fulbright Award to Host a Scholar in Residence

Egidio Chaimite, a Mozambican scholar and expert in democracy and local governance, will join Lincoln University of Missouri in 2026 through a prestigious Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence award.

Lincoln University of Missouri (LU) has won a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence award that will support a Mozambican scholar’s teaching and research at Lincoln in 2026. The scholar, Egidio Chaimite, studies democracy and local government with the Citizenship and Governance Research Group at the Institute of Social and Economic Studies (IESE) in Maputo, Mozambique. He will spend a year at LU, teaching political science courses on international relations and on Mozambican society and politics, as well as sharing his journalistic research methods in rural areas.

Chaimite holds a Ph.D. in development studies from Sussex University in the United Kingdom. He earned his undergraduate degree in public administration from Eduardo Mondlane University in his native Mozambique and a master’s in political science from Université Bordeaux in France. His research at IESE focuses on governance, elections and social movements.

Mozambique, which is in southeastern Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. After winning independence from Portugal in 1975, the country suffered through a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship and civil war until 1994, and violence between the rebels and the government continued until 2023. Mozambique has been a constitutional democracy since 1994, yet the country is rated only “partially free” by Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization that monitors the status of democracies and tracks threats to freedom globally. Chaimite’s research in Mozambique focuses on the country’s principal concerns of government corruption; lingering health, education and economic effects of COVID-19; and a jihadist insurgency in northern Mozambique.

The Fulbright Program is an international academic exchange program founded in 1946 to increase mutual understanding and support of peaceful relations between people in the United States and those in other countries. Funded primarily through Congress, the U.S. State Department directs the program, manages priorities and allocates resources. Fulbright’s Scholar-in-Residence program is a unique initiative driven by curriculum and teaching needs of American colleges and universities. The program enables institutions to host a scholar from outside the United States for a semester or full academic year to teach courses, assist in curriculum development, guest lecture, develop study abroad/exchange partnerships and engage with the campus and local community.

“This award is a tremendous honor and an important milestone in my academic and professional journey,” Chaimite says. “The opportunity to spend a year at Lincoln University of Missouri — an institution with a rich legacy of excellence and social commitment — will allow me to engage with new academic communities, deepen my research and contribute to meaningful dialogue on global challenges.”

Chaimite will live in mid-Missouri with his wife and young children from January to December 2026. For students who may not be able to study abroad, Fulbright awards such as Chaimite’s provide an on-campus exchange environment that helps expand perspectives and challenge assumptions, says Brian Norris, associate professor of political science and Lincoln’s faculty coordinator for international education and study abroad. Norris was a Fulbright Global Scholar in Mozambique and Colombia from 2022 to 2024.

“A Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence award can be a significant boost to the already impressive career of a scholar like Egidio, who has made a long-term commitment to doing the hard work of building democracy in his country,” Norris says. “China is heavily involved in Mozambique, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, and the meaningful people-to-people exchanges made possible by the Fulbright award could not contrast more with China’s heavy-handed approach, which emphasizes extraction of wood from Mozambique and building of infrastructure.”

Chaimite adds that this opportunity “also represents a unique platform to build bridges between Mozambique and the United States, especially in advancing governance, social inclusion and human rights knowledge. I am genuinely grateful for this opportunity and excited about the collaborations and learning it will bring.”