Dr. Penda Choppy is the Director of the Creole Language and Culture Research Institute at the University of Seychelles. She previously served as Director of the Creole Institute of Seychelles from 1999 to 2014, after which she became its CEO. She joined the University of Seychelles in 2016.

Penda studied English at the University of Leeds as an undergraduate (1992–1995) and obtained a Master’s Degree (research) from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2018. She completed her doctoral research with the Islands and Small States Institute, University of Malta, in January 2023. In March 2024, she received the Outstanding Thesis Award for the 2023 PhD cohort, conferred by the Doctoral School of the University of Malta.

Her main research interests include the oral and written Creole traditions of the Western Indian Ocean, postcolonial and small island contexts, and cultural creolisation and identity in Seychelles. She has published more than a dozen articles and book chapters in these fields.

Publications by Dr. Choppy