Mahder Takele Teshome

Born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Mahder is pursuing a PhD in anthropology. She completed her undergraduate degree at New York University Shanghai, where she crafted a self-designed honors major called Religion and Language and minored in Hebrew and Judaic studies. Mahder has conducted independent research projects on personal names across Ethiopian Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Ethiopia and Israel. She has been teaching Amharic literacy across three continents since 2020. Her current research explores human and animal relationships as sites of knowledge production as well as the role of aesthetics in the preservation of heritage. Her work is centered around the Inyambo, Rwanda’s Royal Cows. Mahder aspires to encourage more Africans to engage with the social sciences and humanities.