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Shadow scholars: inside Kenya’s multibillion-dollar fake-essay industry

Sociologist Patricia Kingori is helping to expose contract cheating by scholars in high-income countries.
By
  1. Anna McKie

    1. Anna McKie is a freelance journalist based in London.

Four years ago, Patricia Kingori became one of the youngest women, and the youngest Black person, to be awarded a full professorship at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research as a sociologist focuses on understanding, exploring and documenting different forms of ethics and power in health, medicine and science.

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Nature 647, 1074-1075 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03399-5

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 06 November 2025: An earlier version of this article stated an incorrect value for the age at which Patricia Kingori received her professorship.

References

  1. Newton, P. M. Front. Educ. 3, 1–18 (2018).

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