Biography

Dr. Bulelani Jili holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was a Meta Research PhD Fellow. His research interests span Africa–China relations, cybersecurity, ICT development, African political economy, internet policy, Chinese business law, law and development, and privacy law. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School. Dr. Jili has previously held fellowships at the Atlantic Council and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where he served as a Cybersecurity Fellow. He also conducted research with the China, Law, Development project at the University of Oxford—a five-year, interdisciplinary, and multi-sited initiative funded by the European Research Council to investigate the legal and institutional foundations of China’s global rise. In addition to his academic work, Dr. Jili has advised leading think tanks, governments, firms, and advocacy organizations, including the American Bar Association, Atlantic Council, Freedom House, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the U.S. Department of State, Open AI, the United Nations, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

As a researcher of Africa-China relations, he was named by the Mail & Guardian as one of the most influential young South Africans. His writing has appeared in leading think tanks and publications around the world, like African Affairs, Nature, The Cambridge Handbook on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Culture, and Society, Mail & Guardian, Africa is a Country, The Elephant, South China Morning Post, African Center for Strategic Studies, Politico, The Economist, and Financial Times. He is also a regular panelist and speaker at international conferences.

He has received numerous prestigious awards, honors, and fellowships, including the Wenner-Gren dissertation fieldwork fellowship, Berkman Klein Fellowship, Meta Research PhD Fellowship, Google Public Policy Fellowship, Yenching Scholarship, Merit & Term-Time Research Fellowship, Standard Bank Africa Chairman’s Scholarship Award, Oppenheimer Graduate Fellowship Fund, and Orrick Fellowship.

Dr. Jili serves as a committee member at the IEEE Standards Association's global initiative on the ethics of AI systems. At Harvard, he sits on the board of directors and is a policy team member on the Harvard COVID-19 Taskforce Students vs. Pandemics initiative; a faculty representative, department representative, and funding committee member on the Graduate Student Council; a Graduate Student Council Executive Board member (as a large representative for interdisciplinary programs); a contributing editor at the Society for Cultural Anthropology; a resident tutor at Eliot House (Harvard College); and a mentor in the Greener Scott Scholars Program.

Prior to attending Harvard, Dr. Jili worked at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in South Africa as a visiting researcher. He earned an M.Phil. from Cambridge University, where he studied as a Standard Bank Africa Chairman’s Scholar. In 2016, he was awarded a Yenching Scholarship to study at the Yenching Academy of Peking University, where he received an M.A. in Economics. Studying with Prof. He Yafei, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Prof. Jiang Guo Hua, he studied Chinese global governance strategies and economic approaches. He took an A.B. with honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (College of Social Studies) from Wesleyan University (CT), where he was a Pfeiffer Scholar.