She received her PhD from Harvard University in 2008. Her dissertation was on performance and the ‘escorting of tradition’ in relation to cultural festivals in Zambia. Simbao was an American Council of Learned Societies postdoctoral fellow in 2010-2011, and is currently the leader of a Mellon-funded research group, Visual and Performing Arts of Africa (www.research-africa-arts.com), which founded the Arts Lounge at the National Arts Festival in South Africa. She writes on the creative arts of Africa and has published in journals such as African Arts, NKA, JACANA, Art South Africa, Parachute, Third Text and de Arte. Recent research interests include China-Africa relations and the arts, for which Simbao is the curator of the exhibition “Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China” (www.makingway.co.za).