Sylff News

The secretariat received an email detailing an interesting encounter between two Sylff fellows that we would like to share.

The sender of the email was Bruno Pegorari, a Sylff fellowship recipient in 2017 at the University of São Paulo and originally from Brazil. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales. We recently posted news about his SLI award.

One day, he was introduced to a visiting researcher from Indonesia who, like Pegorari, had an interest in indigenous rights. As they were enjoying their conversation one afternoon in the campus courtyard, Pegorari realized they had one more thing in common—the visiting researcher was also a Sylff fellow!

The fellow he met was Yance Arizona, who received his fellowship in 2011 at the University of Indonesia. He is pursuing a PhD at Leiden University in the Netherlands and was visiting UNSW for his doctoral research. His trip to UNSW was funded by Sylff Research Abroad (SRA).

The secretariat was delighted to learn of the chance meeting between two Sylff fellows who had both left their home countries to pursue doctoral studies overseas. We are reminded that Sylff is a truly global community!

We laud the fellows’ commitment to cutting-edge research and hope that their findings will have a positive impact on strengthening the rights of indigenous peoples.

We also thank Bruno for sharing news of his meeting with Yance. We always welcome your submissions. Please let us know of any other Sylff encounters!

Yance Arizona, left, and Bruno Pegorari at the University of New South Wales.