People - Chair of Complexities ∞ Humanities

Reda Benkirane – Chair / Affiliate Full Professor

Reda Benkirane, sociologist and anthropologist, is a researcher in social sciences and an expert in international relations who has been working for UN agencies and NGOs for more than thirty years. His empirical research covers mainly urbanization, complexity, radicalism, and contemporary issues on Islam.

Read more about his bio-bibliography here.

Email: reda.benkirane[at]um6p.ma

Nicolas Sperry-Guillou – Edge Dynamics Program Director

Nick is a French-American academic manager and social science researcher. He holds an MA in Sociology of Religion, focusing his research on religious diversity in contemporary societies. He is currently pursuing a PhD with the University of Toulouse, studying the emergence of social dynamics within ecotones. Nick has a well-honed skill set in project management and instructional design and has successfully led academic programs and facilitated transformative change within organizations.

Nick leads various initiatives within the Chair, including the Edge Dynamics program and several editorial and translation projects.

Email: nicolas.sperry-guillou[at]um6p.ma

Alexis Trouillot – Assistant Professor

Alexis Trouillot is an intellectual historian of the History of Mathematics in Africa. At the broadest level, his scholarship focuses on the discursive usages of the category of “science,” when and why certain kinds of discursive production are classified as “scientific”, and what assumptions underpin such a designation. In particular, his research addresses how historical and present-day discourse around scientific knowledge production have imagined Africa as a place outside of history.

Professor Trouillot is currently working on two book projects. The first is an edition of Frank Chapman’s Science and Africa, one of the earliest histories of mathematics in Africa written in North America. The second, Numbers of Sand: Computing Texts in a West African Space, is an intellectual history of calculation in nineteenth-century Saharan West Africa.

Read more here.

Email: alexis.trouillot[at]um6p.ma

Samia Erraji – Student Associate

Samia is a third-year student at UM6P’s Green Tech Institute pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Operations and Digitalization. She gained practical experience through an internship at the Green Energy Park, where she focused on renewable energy and smart building projects. Additionally, she completed a digitalization project at Dolidol, where she worked on automating a real-time monitoring system for production processes.

Samia is also involved in volunteer work, particularly educational outreach through the university’s Social Experience Program. Additionally, she serves as an Innovation Entrepreneurship Lab ambassador, helping organize events and support entrepreneurial initiatives.

Email: samia.erraji[at]um6p.ma