Maïa Tellit Hawad is a Franco-Tuareg researcher, writer, and PhD candidate at Yale University in French and Francophone Studies. Her work explores nomadic becomings in Tuareg societies and the entanglements of geography, coloniality, and race in the present-day governance of the Central Sahara. Tellit Hawad examines how French Africanist sciences have shaped dominant narratives of the region, and how colonial, racial, and resource-driven regimes continue to structure it today.

She holds an MA in Contemporary Philosophy from Panthéon-Sorbonne Université. Since 2023, she has taught in Research Studio RS6 within the Environmental Architecture programme at the Royal College of Art, London.