People

Dr. Frank Edward

All People

  • Role in Center:

    Scientific Leader at Core Partner Institution

  • Discipline:

    History and Heritage Studies

  • University:

    University of Dar es Salaam - Core Partner Institution

  • Country:

    Tanzania

Dr Frank Edward is a lecturer and researcher in histories of urbanisation, transport and technology at University of Dar es Salaam. Previously, he has a worked a research associate in the Global History of Technology and as a PhD fellow in the African Cities in Transition Project that were funded by EU and Hans-Böckler Stiftung in respectively at TU Darmstadt’s departments of History and Acrhitecture. In 2023-2024, he collaborated with TU Berlin’s DAAD-funded SMUS Phase 1 in which he participated in teaching-on-site workshop and generated a MOOC on urban floods risk reduction in Tanzania. In 2024, he collaborated with colleagues at Oulu University on RECIPE Project in which they examined the intersection between pandemics and urban planning in world cities. He is currently researching on cycling in urban Tanzania.

Selected Publications:

  • Edward, Frank, and Ulrike Lindner. “Health Infrastructure Planning in Tanzania, 1961-1980s: The Problems of Future-Making”. Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies 1, no. 1 ( 2024): 83–114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.56279/ZJAHS1115

    Edward, Frank. “Nyerere’s Bicycle: Cycling as a Pedal Power in Dar es Salaam”, in Cycling Cities: The African Experience (forthcoming, fall 2025)

    Edward, Frank. Review of The City Electric: Infrastructure and Ingenuity in Postcolonial Tanzania by Michael Degani.” Technology and Culture 64, no. 4 (2023): 1328–30 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2023.a911027

    Edward, Frank. Circulation and appropriation of urban technologies: Drainage and Traffic Infrastructures in Dar es Salaam, 1913-1999. Darmstadt: Tuprints, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26083/tuprints-00023810

    Edward, Frank. “Planned vulnerabilities: Street Flooding and Drainage Infrastructure in Colonial Dar es Salaam”, HoST 16 (1) (June 2022): 29-47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/host-2022-0003

    Edward, Frank and Mikael Hård. “Maintaining the Local Empire: The Public Works Department in Dar es Salaam, 1920–60” in The Journal of Transport History 41 (1) (2020): 27-46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022526619883457

     

     

Areas of Expertise:

  1. Urbanisation in Tanzania
  2. Transport Histories
  3. Urban Infrastructure
  4. History of Technology
  5. Urban Housing

Current Position(s):

  • Lecturer in History of Urbanisation, Transport and Technology
  • Managing Editor of Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

Past Position(s)

  • Research Associate of EU’s Global History of Technology at TU Darmstadt
  • Instructor of African History Sources at TU Darmstadt
  • PhD Fellow at TU Darmstadt
  • Assistant Lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam

Prizes & Awards:

  • PhD Studies Fellowship from Hans-Böckler Stiftung (2015-2017)
  • ICOHTEC and SHOT Travel Gravel Grant Awards (2016-2017)
  • RECIPE Project Mini-Research Award ( 2024)
  • DAAD SMUS MOOC Grant Award (2023-2024)

Memberships & Networks:

  • The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT)
  • Historical Association of Tanzania (HAT)
  • International Network for Research in Transport in Africa (INTRA)
  • Cycling Cities Network