Are you passionate about addressing real life challenges? Do you want to collaborate with students from diverse disciplines and get supported while at it? Then the LDE Nairobi Interdisciplinary Master’s Thesis Lab is for you.  This program is tailored for students from Kenyan universities, alongside peers from Leiden University, TU Delft, and Erasmus University Rotterdam, who are researching some of East Africa’s most urgent climate and urban development issues. 

Choose from four research themes: 

• Carbon Removal Technologies – how communities govern, benefit from, and consent to carbon removal projects across Sub-Saharan Africa
• Clean Cooking and Energy Planning– household energy access, clean cooking adoption, and low-carbon solutions in Nairobi’s informal settlements 
• Urban Heat and Digital Technologies– using remote sensing, sensors, and digital tools to map and respond to urban heat stress
• Climate Mobility and Housing– how climate-driven migration is reshaping housing access and urban settlement in Nairobi 

You’ll get: 
✅ Tailored supervision: guidance from expert supervisors from Nuvoni, universities in Kenya      and from The Netherlands.                                                                                                                                   ✅ Collaborate across borders working alongside fellow students from various Kenyan universities and Dutch universities 
✅ An intensive seminar week in Nairobi with mini-lectures, field visits, and methods labs 
✅ Financial support for research expenses and stipend 
✅ An interdisciplinary team combining engineering, social science, health, architecture, and more 

Fieldwork runs from February to July 2027, so applicants should be nearing thesis stage and ready to focus full-time on their research. 

Applications now open. 

Deadline: October 2, 2026:  

Send a motivation letter, supervisor support letter, approved concept note, and CV to thesislab@nuvoniresearch.org