• Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Aston University

Dr Ezenwa E. Olumba is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Department of Society and Politics, Aston University, Birmingham. He leads a Leverhulme Trust-funded project on how adolescent asylum seekers and refugees in the UK process trauma, with a focus on cognitive immobility and its effects on their well-being, identity, and social relations. He is also a contributing writer to Psychology Today, where he publishes public-facing essays on identity, trauma, and migratory experience.

He is a critical migration and conflict scholar whose interdisciplinary research examines the influence of violence, culture, and political structures on emotions, (im)mobility experiences, and collective behaviour. He holds a BA in International Relations from Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (Germany), and both an MSc in International Relations and a PhD in Politics from Royal Holloway, University of London. His research interests include immobility, migration, memory, culture, and identity, as well as drones and lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS).

He pioneered the concept of cognitive immobility, which explains how mental entrapment in a past location or life experience shapes present realities. His work on cognitive immobility earned him recognition in 2024 on the British Science Association's list of '16 of the UK's best scientific minds'. He also developed the the resilience–accessibility framework, which examines why and how people remain in areas affected by adversity and the concept of aerial colonialism, which critiques how modern technologies of domination shape realities on the African continent. His work connects theoretical innovation with grounded empirical research on the experiences of people living under adversity, especially those who face challenges associated with (im)mobility and the pressures of everyday life.

Dr Olumba earned his doctorate from Royal Holloway, University of London. He is an Associate Fellow of Advance HE (formerly Higher Education Academy), has taught at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of Bedfordshire. He also served as president of a section at the British Science Association (2024-2025).

His academic work appears in leading journals, including the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Migration Studies, Culture & Psychology, Third World Quarterly, Critical Studies on Terrorism, African Security Review, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology.
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• 2025–present Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Aston University.

• 2025 Royal Holloway, University of London, PhD

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