Affiliated Faculty
Kehinde Ajayi
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College of Arts & Sciences, Economics Department, Assistant Professor Phone: 617.353.4144 Kehinde Ajayi’s research interests are in the areas of economic development and the economics of education. Her current research examines whether school choice programs reduce educational inequality and elevates the effect of school quality on student performance. Kehinde was a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow Fellow and a Fulbright Fellow. She received her PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley and her BA in economics from Stanford University. |
Betty S. Anderson
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College of Arts & Sciences, History Department, Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-8302 Betty Anderson’s current research focuses on the development of political parties, national identity, and educational policies in Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon. Her publications include History Handbook, Houghton Mifflin Press, 2003; Nationalist Voices in Jordan: The Street and the State, University of Texas Press, 2005; and The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education, University of Texas Press, 2011. |
Mary Bachman-Desilva
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School of Public Health, Center for International Health & Development, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-1260 Dr. Bachman completed her Doctorate in Demography and International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, where her thesis work focused on early child health and subsequent morbidity and mortality in a rural area of The Gambia. Over the past ten years, Mary has worked on a variety of health and development projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on francophone West Africa. At the CIHD, she is currently overseeing a NIH-funded longitudinal study of orphan welfare in the Ladysmith Region of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Areas of interest: Demography, infectious disease epidemiology, maternal and child health, the socioeconomic impact of HIV and AIDS, nutrition in developing countries |
Kathryn Bard
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Archaeology, Professor Phone: 671-358-1162 Co-director of the joint BU/IUO (University of Naples “l’Orientale”) project at Aksum, Ethiopia, 1993–2002, where a number of sites were excavated, including a large elite residence and cemetery on Bieta Giyorgis Hill to the northwest of Aksum, dating to the late 1st millennium BC and 1st millennium AD. Since 2003, Kathryn Bard has been co-directing excavations at the 4,000-year-old pharaonic port at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis, Egypt, which was used to send seafaring expeditions to the land of Punt, in the southern Red Sea region. She is now working on compiling and editing the publication of the Aksum excavations. In 2010 Bard was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Areas of interest: Late prehistory of Egypt; the origins of complex societies and early states in northeast Africa: Egypt, Nubia, and northern Ethiopia/Eritrea; the Red Sea trading network in the Bronze Age; Iron Ages. |
Linda L. Barnes
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Boston Healing Landscape Program, Director and Associate Professor Phone: 617-414-4534 Linda Barnes surveys the religiously based healing practices popular among African-Americans and members of African Diaspora communities in and around Boston in an effort to improve communication between doctors and patients. This multi-institutional project is coordinating several studies that examine how minorities supplement or find alternatives to modern Western medicine. The information gathered will eventually be integrated into the BU School of Medicine’s curriculum. Areas of Interest: Religiously based healing practices popular among African-Americans and members of African Diaspora communities in and around Boston. |
Cynthia Becker
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Art History & Architecture, Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-1471 Cynthia Becker is a scholar of African arts specializing in the arts of the Imazighen (Berbers) in northwestern Africa, specifically Morocco, Algeria, and Niger. Her research has been supported by grants from Fulbright, the Council of American Overseas Centers, Fulbright-Hays, and the American Institute of Maghreb Studies. Professor Becker has served as a consultant for numerous museum exhibitions and published articles on the visual and performing arts of the Imazighen as well as the trans-Saharan slave trade. Her book Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity was published by the University of Texas Press in July 2006. She co-author of Desert Jewels: Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermès Collection (New York: Museum for African Art, 2009). Becker is currently working on a book about the Afro-Islamic aesthetics and ceremonial practices of the Gnawa (descendants of former slaves in Morocco) that considers the history of the trans-Saharan slave trade and its implications for material culture in both western and northern Africa. Other projects include the visual expression of Amazigh consciousness by contemporary painters/activists, the influence of Sufism on contemporary Moroccan art, and the visual culture and history of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans (her hometown). She is currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University (2009–2010). Areas of Interest: Morocco, Algeria, Mali, Senegal, Niger, and New Orleans |
Kheireddine Bekkai
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College of Arts & Sciences, Modern Languages & Comparative Literature, Lecturer in Arabic Phone: 617-358-4652 Kheireddine Bekkai is a native speaker of Arabic and is also familiar with some Arabic dialects. He has taught Arabic at Tulane University in New Orleans and worked as a French lecturer at Dillard University for five years.Areas of Interest: Interests focus on the linguistic and identity issues in Maghreb and, more specifically, in Algeria. |
Ruha Benjamin
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College of Arts & Sciences, Sociology, Assistant Professor, Sociology and African American Studies Phone: 617-353-2591 Ruha Benjamin received her BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Spelman College (2001), MA and PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley (2008), and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA’s Center for Society and Genetics (2010). Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of science, medicine and biotechnology; the construction and naturalization of racial and gender taxonomies; science policy, public health, and social theory. She is currently completing a book, People’s Science: Reconstituting Bodies & Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (Stanford University Press), which examines ethnoracial, gender, class, and disability politics as a constitutive feature of stem cell research. In a second project, Provincializing Science: Mapping & Marketing Ethnoracial Diversity in the Genomic Age (in preparation), she is investigating how newly derived genetic classifications are impacting social groupings in three countries (India, Mexico, and South Africa), with attention to how commercial forces are driving the creation of ethnic drug markets as a proxy for public health. Professor Benjamin has received grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and UC Berkeley Townsend Center for the Humanities. Areas of Interest: science, medicine, race, caste, South Africa, African diaspora in India & Mexico |
William Bicknell
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Professor and Chair Emeritus Phone: 617-283-5775 William Bicknell is Professor of International Health at Boston University’s School of Public Health, Chair Emeritus of the Department of International Health, founder of the Center for International Health, and former Associate Vice President for International Health at Boston University. Bill has extensive program development, health sector analysis, management, financial analysis, and program evaluation experience. He has worked in more than 46 countries in most parts of the world and has published on numerous subjects. He is licensed to practice medicine in Massachusetts and North Carolina and is Board Certified in Public Health. Bill has held posts ranging from Commissioner of Public Health for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to Senior Physician for the Peace Corps/Ethiopia to Medical Director of the Job Corps. He is currently actively involved with the government of Lesotho in designing and implementing multisectoral, long-term programs to mitigate the impact of HIV and AIDS. Bill’s interest areas include: the organization, delivery, and financing of health care; international health; public health and medical education; health and social services for the elderly; bio-terrorism and emergency preparedness; public-private sector interactions; the donor process and, most recently, developing and implementing long-term programs to minimize the human capital impact of HIV and AIDS. Areas of Interest: Health program development, health sector analysis, management, financial analysis and program evaluation |
Allison Blakely
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of History, George and Joyce Wein Professor of African American Studies Phone: 617-358-1420 Allison Blakely came to Boston University in 2001 after teaching for 30 years at Howard University. He is the author of Blacks in the Dutch World: Racial Imagery and Modernization (Indiana University Press, 1994); Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought (Howard University Press, 1986—a winner of an American Book Award in 1988); several articles on Russian populism; and others on various European aspects of the Black Diaspora. His interest in comparative history has centered on comparative populism and on the historical evolution of color prejudice. He is the immediate past President of the Phi Beta Kappa Society (2006–2009) and serves on the editorial board of its journal, The American Scholar. Areas of Interest: African diaspora, Africans in Europe and Russia |
Karen Boatman
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School of Education, Associate Clinical Professor Phone: 617-353-3187 Karen Boatman defines education as changing behaviors and attitudes and increasing knowledge and skills. This goes beyond schooling and includes the work of community agencies and nongovernmental organizations. She designs programs to improve quality of life, especially for marginalized populations. This involves, for example, improving higher education and schooling as well as health and income production programs. She works in poor areas of the United States, Europe, Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. |
Ksenija Borojevic
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Archaeology, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-358-1649 Since 2006, Ksenija Borojevic has been the principal archaeobotanist for the Mersa/Wadi Gawasis project, which is directed by Kathryn Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich. She has experimented with making bread using conical molds found at the site and commonly used during the Middle Kingdom in Egypt. As a 10-year-old girl, she lived with her parents in Cairo, where she developed a passion for archaeology and ancient Egypt. Besides working in Egypt, Borojevic currently studies plant remains from archeological sites in Southeast Europe and Israel. Areas of Interest: Plant remains from archeological sites with the focus on human-plant relations in terms of food production, preparation, consumption, storage, and infestation. Languages: Besides English, Dr. Borojevic speaks French, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, Italian, Spanish, and understands German and most of the Slavic languages. |
Laurence Breiner
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College of Arts & Sciences, Professor Phone: 617-358-2544 Laurence Breiner focuses on Caribbean literature, especially poetry, and post-colonial literatures; 17th-century English and comparative literature. Areas of Interest: Caribbean |
Barbara B. Brown
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College of Arts & Sciences, African Studies Center, Director of Outreach Phone: 617-353-7303 PhD 1979, MA 1971, Boston University; AB 1968, Smith College. Outreach Director since 1990. Radcliffe Institute Fellow, Harvard University (1999–2000). Overseas Experience: Botswana, Benin, South Africa, Lesotho, Kenya, and Tanzania. Languages: French, Spanish, Setswana |
Malcolm Bryant
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School of Public Health, Center for Global Health & Development, Clinical Associate Professor of International Health Phone: 617-414-1266 Malcolm Bryant has more than 30 years of experience working in the health sector as a clinician, educator, researcher, and manager of public health programs. Currently, Dr. Bryant is Clinical Associate Professor of International Health at the Boston University School of Public Health and functions as the Deputy Director of the Orphans & Vulnerable Children Comprehensive Research Project for the Center for Global Health & Development. After his initial specialization in obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Bryant focused on the management of public health programs as District Medical Officer in Zimbabwe during the 1980s and continued his engagement with programs in Africa from the Harvard Institute for International Development, where he supported research and training programs in Cameroon, Djibouti, Togo, and Zaire. As the head of the Strengthening Health Services program at Management Sciences for Health from 1995 to 2007, he designed programs for and provided technical assistance to the ministries of health in Senegal, Guinea, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Madagascar, Zambia, and South Africa. In 2007, Dr. Bryant co-founded Innovative Development Expertise and Advisory Services, Inc., a new consulting company focused on the strengthening of health systems in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cote d’Ivoire. Dr. Bryant’s current work involves applied research into programming for orphans and vulnerable children to find solutions to the causes of programming bottlenecks; the evidence needed to develop good policies; and the most cost-effective approaches to achieve real outcomes for child health and social well-being. Dr. Bryant holds a medical degree from London University and a master’s in public health from Harvard University. He is also the incoming Chair of the International Health Section of the American Public Health Association, and the co-chair of the Community-Based Primary Health Care working group.Areas of Interest: Health systems strengthening, community-based primary health care, quality improvement, decentralized health system management Languages: English (mother tongue), Fluent French, very rusty Chi-Manyika |
Edouard Bustin
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College of Arts & Sciences, Director of Fracophone Africa Research Group, Professor Phone: 617-353-7307 Edouard Bustin has authored or co-authored several books and monographs dealing with Africa, including Lunda Under Belgian Rule: The Politics of Ethnicity. He has also written many book chapters, encyclopedia entries, journal entries, and articles (mostly on Africa) which have been published in the United States, Europe, and Africa. He has studied and worked in five European and twelve African countries and has been a visiting professor or guest lecturer at universities in the United States, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. He has also consulted and prepared reports on higher education and on democratization in the Congo for the Rockefeller Foundation and for USAID. Professor Bustin is the founder and director of the Francophone Africa Research Group (GRAF), and serves as coordinator for the exchange agreement between Boston University and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques at Bordeaux. Areas of Interest: Southern Africa and francophone Africa |
Odile Cazenave
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Romance Studies, Professor Phone: 617-358-3430 Odile Cazenave is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Boston University. She is interested in francophone literature and cinema, especially that of Africa, the Caribbean, the Maghreb, and the Indian Ocean. She also focuses on modern French literature and culture, as well as feminist/gender and postcolonial theory. Odile Cazenave is the author of Femmes rebelles: naissance d’un nouveau roman africain au féminin (L’Harmattan, Paris 1996), and its translation, Rebellious Women (Lynne Rienner, 1999), and Afrique sur Seine: Une nouvelle génération de romanciers africains à Paris (L’Harmattan, 2003)/Afrique sur Seine: A New Generation of African Writers in Paris (Lexington Books, 2005). The guest editor for Présence Francophone 58, ‘Francophonies, Ecritures et Immigration,’ she has published numerous articles on women writers, on questions of identity, as well as on issues of displacement, (im)migration and globalization. She co-edited a special issue for Cultures Sud, 172, with Tanella Boni, on “L’engagement au féminin” and she just finished a manuscript with co-writer Patricia Celerier (Vassar College) on Engaging Literature: Francophone African Writers and the Burden of Commitment. Areas of Interest: Francophone Africa |
Richard W. Clapp
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School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health, Professor Emeritus Phone: 617-638-4731 Richard Clapp is an epidemiologist with more than 30years of experience in public health practice and consulting. He became a full-time faculty member in the Department of Environmental Health in 1993. He has worked in state and local health departments: as director of a community health center, a statewide childhood lead poisoning prevention program, the Massachusetts Cancer Registry, and an environmental health consulting group at JSI Research and Training Institute. His research has focused on cancer in military veterans and in communities with toxic or radiation hazards. He has worked on community-based research in New England and pesticide health effects research in South Africa. He was former cochair of the steering committee of Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility and serves on several other professional advisory committees. He has an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health and a DSc in Epidemiology from BU School of Public Health. |
Iain Cockburn
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School of Management, Finance and Economics, Professor Phone: 617-353-3775 Iain Cockburn is Professor of Finance & Economics in the School of Management. Professor Cockburn’s research interests include the economics of intellectual property and technology transfer, with a particular focus on the biopharmaceutical industry, global health issues, access to medicines, and development. Among his current research projects are “Location of Biopharmaceutical Activity,” “Intellectual Property Rights and the Global Distribution of Clinical Trials,” and “Frameworks for Evaluating the Impact of TRIPs on Global Health and Innovation.” Professor Cockburn grew up in Zambia, and has a longstanding interest in the economic development of sub-Saharan Africa. |
Steven Cornelius
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College of Fine Arts, Departments of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, African Studies, Visiting Associate Professor Phone: 617-358-4412 Ethnomusicologist Steven Cornelius’ research focuses on West Africa, the Americas, and the music industry. Books include Music of the Civil War Era (Greenwood Press 2004) and The Music of Santería: Traditional Rhythms of the Batá Drums (co-authored with John Amira, White Cliffs Media, 1991). The textbook Sound Tracks: An Introduction to Music as Social Experience (co-authored with Mary Natvig) is in production with Pearson Prentice Hall. Articles have appeared in Latin American Music Review, College Music Symposium, and other journals and books, as well as The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. He served from 1996 to 2006 as music and dance critic for The Blade, Toledo, Ohio’s daily newspaper. Dr. Cornelius holds a professorship in music at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Previous teaching positions include Bruckner-Konservatorium Linz and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Performance credits as a percussionist include the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, and Radio City Music Hall. Areas of Interest: Music of Africa and the Americas |
Neta C. Crawford
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College of Arts & Sciences, African American Studies Program, Professor Phone: 617-353-2795 Neta C. Crawford is Professor of Political Science and African American Studies and her teaching focuses on international ethics and normative change. Dr. Crawford is currently on the board of the Academic Council of the United Nations System (ACUNS). She has also served as a member of the governing Council of the American Political Science Association; on the editorial board of the American Political Science Review; and on the Slavery and Justice Committee at Brown University, which examined Brown University’s relationship to slavery and the slave trade. Her research interests include international relations theory, normative theory, foreign policy decision making; abolition of slavery; African foreign and military policy; sanctions; peace movements; discourse ethics; post-conflict peace building; research design; utopian science fiction; and emotion. She is the author of Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decolonization, Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge University Press, 2002), which was a co-winner of the 2003 American Political Science Association Jervis and Schroeder Award for best book in International History and Politics. She is co-editor of How Sanctions Work: Lessons from South Africa (St. Martin’s, 1999). Her articles have been published in books and scholarly journals such as the Journal of Political Philosophy; International Organization; Security Studies; Perspectives on Politics; International Security; Ethics and International Affairs; Press/Politics; Africa Today; Naval War College Review; Orbis; and Qualitative Methods. Dr. Crawford has appeared on radio and TV and written op-eds on U.S. foreign policy and international relations for newspapers including the Boston Globe; Newsday (Long Island); the Christian Science Monitor; and the Los Angeles Times. |
Marthinus L. Daneel
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School of Theology, Professor of Missiology Phone: 617-353-3065 Marthinus Daneel, Emeritus Professor of Missiology at the University of South Africa, and now a professor at the School of Theology, codirects the Center for Global Christianity & Mission, directs the African Field Education program in Zimbabwe, and edits the African Initiatives in Christian Mission series from UNISA Press with Professor Dana Robert. More than 30 years of ministry and research in Zimbabwe have made him the world’s leading expert on African Independent Churches in southern Africa and have enabled him to establish deep, grassroots networks among African Christian and traditionalist communities. These networks have informed Daneel’s pathbreaking research into African religion and continue to provide unparalleled opportunities for theological outreach and investigation. |
Joanna Davidson
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College of Arts & Sciences, Anthropology Department, Assistant Professor Phone: 617.353.5024 Joanna Davidson is a cultural anthropologist focusing on rural West Africans’ responses to environmental and economic change. She has conducted long-term ethnographic research in Guinea-Bissau among Diola rice cultivators. She is writing a book on the changing notion of “sacred rice” in this region, and she has published several articles on this and related topics. One important aspect of her work highlights the gaps between goals of development and programs and local peoples, and helps explain the mixed success of new food technologies in Africa. She received her BA from Stanford University and her MA and PhD from Emory University. |
André de Quadros
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College of Arts & Sciences and College of Fine Arts, Professor of Music Phone: 617-353-8789 André de Quadros holds professorial positions in the College of Fine Arts and in CAS/GRS and is an affiliate faculty member of the Global Health Initiative. He has an international career conducting choirs and orchestras in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the U.S. His former position was Associate Professor and Director of Music Performance at Monash University School of Music-Conservatorium in Australia. Awards include Monash University Vice-Chancellor and President’s Special Commendation for Distinguished Teaching. He has a continuing research interest in the syncretic music of the African diaspora with particular reference to choral music and children’s folklore, two areas in which he has edited educational materials and choral editions. As the chair of the Multicultural and Ethnic Commission of the International Federation for Choral Music, he collects manuscripts and audio materials from the African continent. His education includes: BA, University of Bombay; Diploma of Humanities, La Trobe University; Graduate Diploma in Movement and Dance, University of Melbourne; Graduate Diploma in Music, Victorian College of the Arts; Master of Education, La Trobe University; Graduate Certificate of Higher Education, Monash University; DAAD scholarship 1979–1980 for graduate studies at Universitat Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He was Artistic Director, Melbourne International Festival of Choirs; Editor, Music of Asia and the Pacific, Earthsongs, Oregon and Songs of the World, Hinshaw Music, North Carolina; Artistic Director, Arab Choral Festival; Honorary Artistic President, Symposium on Church Choral Music, Indonesia; Member, Working Group on Conductors without Borders. Areas of Interest: African choral music, children’s folklore, music in community health Languages: Hindi, Konkani, Marathi, German, French, Portuguese |
Kirk Dearden
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Associate Professor Phone: 617-414-1451 Kirk Dearden is Associate Professor of International Health at Boston University. For the past 19 years, Kirk has provided technical assistance to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to help them evaluate and improve upon the delivery of health services. He has carried out research and evaluation for the Academy for Educational Development; Johns Hopkins University; Save the Children; the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh; Freedom from Hunger; USAID; and the World Health Organization, among others. His work in sub-Saharan Africa includes assignments in Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. In Kenya and Sierra Leone, Kirk has worked with CARE to improve monitoring of infant and young child-feeding behaviors. In Zambia, he is assessing the impact of providing volunteers bicycles to help them provide better services to people living with HIV and AIDS. Other interests include gender and microcredit. Areas of Interest: Delivery of health services, gender, and microcredit |
Jeremy De Silva
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Anthropology, Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-5026 Jeremy received a doctorate in biological anthropology from the University of Michigan in 2008. He is a functional morphologist, interested in reconstructing the locomotor habits of the earliest apes, and the earliest upright walking human ancestors (hominins). These research interests have brought him to the continent of Africa, where he has studied climbing in a wild population of chimpanzees in the Kibale National Park, western Uganda. Additionally, Jeremy is part of an international research team excavating and analyzing the fossilized remains of some of the earliest apes on the slopes of the now extinct Moroto and Napak volcanoes in the Karamoja district of eastern Uganda. Jeremy’s interests in the origins of upright walking has allowed him to study fossil foot and leg bones from early human ancestors in museums in South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya. His particular anatomical expertise is in the evolution of the human foot and ankle. Areas of Interest: Human evolution, locomotor anatomy |
Michael C. DiBlasi
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Archaeology and African Studies Center, Associate Director, Program for the Study of the African Environment; Editor, International Journal of African Historical Studies Phone: 617-353-7306 Michael DiBlasi, Adjunct Associate Professor of Archaeology, has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. His research focuses on aspects of Late Holocene (ca. 2000 BC-AD 800) environmental history and human ecology in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia and emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach that integrates archaeology, anthropology, history, and the natural sciences. He was a member of the Boston University–University of Naples “L’Orientale”- Archaeological Project at Bieta Giyorgis, Aksum (1994–2003), and is currently conducting research on the evolution of cultural landscapes and the development of complex societies in northern Ethiopia. As Publications Editor for the African Studies Center, DiBlasi edits the International Journal of African Historical Studies and several working paper series. www.bu.edu/africa/publications/index.html Areas of Interest: Late Holocene archaeology of eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya); environmental history and human ecology; archaeological palynology; development of complex societies. |
Charles Dunbar
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of International Relations, Professor, Ambassador Phone: 617-353-5633 Ambassador Charles Dunbar served from 1962 to 1993 as a State Department Foreign Service Officer and Ambassador. In this time, he was Ambassador to Qatar and to Yemen. He also was Charg d’Affaires at the American Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan from 1981 to 1983, and between 1985 and 1988 he developed and helped carry out a strategy for strengthening the political dimension of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He has also served in Iran, Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania. In 1998, Ambassador Dunbar served as the United Nations Secretary-General ’s Special Representative responsible for the organization of a referendum in Northwest Africa and is writing a book on this experience. From 1993 to 2001, he served as President of the Cleveland Council on World Affairs, and during that time he also taught at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, and Hiram College. From 2001 to 2004, he was the Warburg Professor in International Relations at Simmons College in Boston. Ambassador Dunbar has published scholarly articles and chapters in edited volumes on American foreign policy, the Western Sahara, Yemen, and Afghanistan and is writing a book on the Western Sahara. His “op-ed” articles have appeared in the Boston Globe and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In addition to the Western Sahara, his research interests include Afghanistan, Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, and post-Cold War United Nations peacekeeping. Areas of Interest: Northwest Africa |
Susan Eve Eckstein
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College of Arts & Sciences, Departments of Sociology, Latin American Studies Program, Women’s Studies Program, Political Science, Professor Phone: 617-353-2591 Susan Eckstein is a specialist on urbanization, immigration, poverty, rights and injustices, and social movements in the context of developing countries. She has also written on agrarian reform, comparative development, and effects of revolution. Her main focus is on Latin America and she is interested in developing countries in general. She has written most extensively on Mexico, Cuba, and Bolivia. Currently she is working on immigration and its impact across borders, focusing on the Cuban experience in particular. She has also done some writing on working class volunteerism and suburban ethnicity in the U.S. Professor Eckstein is the author of three books (in multiple editions) and editor of another three books in English. She has further published two books in Spanish and authored about seven dozen articles, winning several awards for her publications. She has held grants and fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute for World Order, a Mellon-MIT grant, the Ford Foundation, and the Tinker Foundation. She has served as President of the Latin American Studies Association and of the New England Council on Latin America; held numerous other positions in the two societies as well as in the American Sociological Association and the Eastern Sociological Society; and served on the editorial boards of about a dozen journals and press editorial boards.Areas of Interest: Cuba and Latin America Languages: Spanish |
Farouk El-Baz
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Boston University Center for Remote Sensing, Director, Research Professor Phone: 617-353-9709 Farouk El-Baz is Director of the Center for Remote Sensing and Research Professor in the Departments of Archaeology and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. El-Baz participated in the NASA Apollo Program as secretary of the Site Selection Committee for the six Apollo lunar landing missions, principal investigator of Visual Observations and Photography, and chairman of the Astronaut Training Group for orbital photography . He coordinated the first visit by American scientists to deserts in northwestern China. His research on the origin and evolution of the desert resulted in his election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Prior to embarking on extensive field trips to harsh deserts, El-Baz analyzed space photographs utilizing innovative techniques to select sites for detailed ground investigation. He first used this approach in the Western Desert of Egypt and soon applied the method to study deserts in Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), Sultanate of Oman, Darfur in northwestern Sudan, the deserts of northwestern China, and the Rajasthan of northwest India. The Geological Society of America has established The Farouk El-Baz Award for Desert Research to reward excellence and two student awards to encourage desert research. El-Baz served his native land as Science Advisor to the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He presently serves on Egypt’s Higher Council for Science and Technology, which is headed by the Prime Minister. |
Randall P. Ellis
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Economics; Center for Health Economics Research & Evaluation, Professor Phone: 617-353-2741 Randall P. Ellis is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Boston University specializing in health economics. He joined the BU faculty in 1981 after earning degrees in economics from Yale, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and MIT. Dr. Ellis’s interests include health economics in both developed and developing countries, with particular interests in how incentives affect consumer and health care provider behavior. Dr. Ellis is an associate editor of the Journal of Health Economics, and serves on the board of directors of the International Health Economics Association and the American Society of Health Economists. Dr. Ellis has written over 100 articles, reports and papers on diverse health topics. He is best known for having helped develop the Diagnostic Cost Group payment formula used by the U.S. Medicare program and used in many countries around the globe. His recent research has been on risk adjustment; provider response to the reimbursement system; optimal health insurance; health plan competition; the economics of mental health; health demand modeling; and the cost-effectiveness of cancer screening. He has published about his experiences in Kenya, Egypt, Niger, India, and Australia. Languages: French |
Frank (Rich) Feeley
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School of Public Health, Center for International Health, Associate Professor Phone: 614-414-4414 Frank Feeley is Associate Professor of Public Health at Boston University School of Medicine and Associate Director of the Department of International Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Trained as a lawyer, he served as Assistant Commissioner of Public Health in Massachusetts, and has a continuing interest in the regulation of private health providers and the administration of public health services. Areas of Interest: Economic impact of HIV, health financing in southern Africa. |
Susan D. Foster
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Professor Phone: 617-638-5234 Susan Foster served in the Peace Corps in Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire) and Cameroon, worked in the World Bank’s Population, Health and Nutrition Department and in the World Health Organization’s Essential Drugs Program in Geneva. She then joined the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine as Senior Lecturer in Health Economics. She has also worked in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Her research interests are primarily on pharmaceutical policy, particularly antibiotic resistance issues, and on the economics of infectious disease, particularly HIV/AIDS, malaria, sexually transmitted infections, and TB, and she is involved in several research projects, primarily in Africa. She speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese. She did her PhD research on the socioeconomic impact of HIV and AIDS in Zambia, at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (University of London). |
Matthew Fox
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School of Public Health, Center for Global Health & Development, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-1260 Matthew Fox is an assistant professor in the Center for Global Health & Development at Boston University. Matthew joined the Center in 2001. Before coming to Boston University he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the former Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan. He is a graduate of the Boston University School of Public Health with a master’s degree in epidemiology and biostatistics and a doctorate in epidemiology. He has a particular interest in infectious disease epidemiology and epidemiologic methods. Matthew is currently resident in Johannesburg, South Africa, studying ways to improve access to and outcomes on HIV treatment with a particular interest in issues relating the use of second line ART when first line treatment fails. Matthew also works on a study of the impact of HIV and AIDS and HAART therapy on labor productivity in Kenya, and a study of factors influencing access to HIV treatment in Zambia. He also does research with members of the faculty of the Department of Epidemiology on quantitative sensitivity analysis and recently co-authored a book on methods of quantitative bias analysis. When in Boston, he coteaches several courses in the Department of International Health, including IH 702 Skills in Critical Analysis and Evidence-Based Writing for Public Health Professionals and IH 808, Applied Research Proposal Development. Areas of Interest: Infectious disease epidemiology and epidemiologic methods |
David Frankfurter
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Religion, Professor, William Goodwin Aurelio Chair in the Appreciation of Scripture Phone: 617-353-3341 David Frankfurter (BA, Wesleyan University [Religion]; MTS, Harvard Divinity School [Scripture]; MA, PhD, Princeton University [Religions of Late Antiquity]) works on aspects of the Christianization of Egypt, covering theoretical issues of popular and domestic religion, syncretism, the magic of scripture, and religious violence. His work depends on comparative conversation with anthropological work on the Christianization of African peoples, including witch-cleansing movements and modern constructions of evil. He has taught at the College of Charleston and the University of New Hampshire and has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study (1993–95) and the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study (2007–8), as well as research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1992) and the Guggenheim Foundation (2007–8). His publications include Elijah in Upper Egypt (Fortress Press, 1993), on an unusual early Christian prophecy that envisioned the end-times in Egyptian terms; Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance (Princeton University Press,1998), which shows the different ways Egyptian religion continued despite the decline of temples and rise of Christianity; and Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History (Princeton University Press, 2006), on the ways that cultures and religious movements (including modern Nigerians and Ghanaians) envision evil as an active, personified force; as well as the edited volume Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt (E.J. Brill, 1998). Areas of Interest: Theoretical issues of popular and domestic religion, syncretism, the magic of scripture, and religious violence Languages: French and Coptic (the liturgical language of the Coptic Church used in Egypt and Ethiopia) |
Irene L. Gendzier
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Political Science, Professor Phone: 617-353-2540 Irene Gendzier is a professor in the Department of Political Science and teaches courses on the history and politics of North Africa and the Middle East as well as Development.Dr. Gendzier writes on subjects of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and problems of development and is co-editor, along with Richard Falk and Robert J Lifton, of Crimes of War: Iraq, Nation Books, 2006. Her book Notes From the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945–1958 was published by Columbia University Press in 1997 and a second edition was released in 2006 with a new introduction. In addition, she is a contributor to the special issue on academic freedom with an essay on “The Risk of Knowing,” in the journal Works and Days, ed. By E. Carvalho, and published by Illinois University Press, 2009. Dr. Gendzier also contributed the essay “Does Knowing Matter,” in the law journal Harvard Unbound in 2008. Areas of Interest: Comparative politics, political development, international political economy, Middle Eastern studies |
Philimon Gona
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Assistant Research Professor Phone: 617-353-8092Dr. Gona is Assistant Research Professor of Mathematics & Statistics at BU and also a biostatistician at the Framingham Heart Study. This dual role of research and teaching allows him the pleasure of teaching statistics while also conducting collaborative epidemiological research in heart diseases. Dr. Gona helped develop an MSc degree program in biostatistics in his native Zimbabwe at the University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences, and he teaches summer courses in the same program. Previously, he was a research scientist designing domestic and international HIV/AIDS clinical trials at the Harvard School of Public Health Department of Biostatistics and also previously was a senior biostatistician/manager in the pharmaceutical industry, leading teams conducting clinical trials for new drug application submission to the FDA. Dr. Gona hopes to continue teaching summer courses as well as to develop collaborative research partnerships with scientists at the University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences. He is well connected at the University of Zimbabwe and he wants to help BU establish a partnership with the University of Zimbabwe. Notably, Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate in Africa and has two reputable medical schools and several teacher training colleges. Areas of Interest: Survival models, Semi-Markov processes with missing data Languages: English, Shona, and limited Ndebele |
Charles L. Griswold
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College of Arts & Sciences, Philosophy Department, Professor Phone: 617-353-2570Charles Griswold is Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy. Before coming to Boston University in the fall of 1991, Charles Griswold taught at Howard University (where he served for several years as Acting Chairman of the philosophy department), and held visiting appointments at the Universite de Paris 1 Panthe on-Sorbonne (May 2004, as Professeur invite), Yale University (1996, as Olmsted Visiting Professor), Georgetown University, and the Catholic University of America. Dr. Griswold serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Theoria: a Journal of Social and Political Philosophy (based in South Africa), Ancient Philosophy, and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition, and was also a member of the Advisory Council of BU’s Institute on Race & Social Division until the Institute closed in 2004. In 2007, Professor Griswold published Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration. (Cambridge University Press, 2007, simultaneous paperback and hardback publication). |
Roy Grundmann
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College of Communication, Film Studies, African Studies Center, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-353-6185Roy Grundmann specializes in the history and theory of avant-garde film and video; film and media theory; gender and sex representation; queer studies; selected topics in American and European cinema since World War II; and developing world cinema and theory. His is contributing editor of Cineaste magazine.Before coming to the United States, Roy Grundmann studied English and American literature and film at the University of Muenster, Germany, Exeter University, England, and the University of Frankfurt, Germany. He has taught film at New York University and at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. For the past ten years, Dr. Grundmann served as one of the editors of Cineaste magazine, for which he is now a contributing editor. His dissertation focuses on the films of Andy Warhol. He hold his PhD from New York University.Areas of Interest: Developing world cinema |
Marilyn Halter
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Colelge of Arts & Sciences, Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs, Professor of History; Research Associate Phone: 617-353-6736Marilyn Halter is a professor of history and a research associate at BU’s Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs (CURA) who specializes in the history and sociology of immigration, race and ethnicity with a particular interest in immigrants of African descent. Her books include Shopping for Identity: The Marketing of Ethnicity, Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860–1965, The Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cape Verde [with Richard Lobban] and her edited volume, New Migrants in the Marketplace: Boston’s Ethnic Entrepreneurs. She has been the Co-Chair of the ìBoston Immigration and Urban History Seminar,î an on-going series in conjunction with the Massachusetts Historical Society, since its inception in 1998. Her current research is a national study of recent West African immigrants and refugees to the United States. Areas of Interest: Cape Verde and immigrants of African descent |
Davidson H. Hamer
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School of Public Health, Center for International Health & Development; School of Medicine, Professor Phone: 260-974-543773 Dr. Hamer works at the Zambia Centre for Applied Health Research and Development in Lusaka, Zambia. He has a particular interest in tropical infectious diseases, with extensive field experience in malaria, HIV/AIDS, maternal, neonatal, and child survival studies, and antimicrobial resistance. Dr. Hamer is also Adjunct Professor of Nutrition at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, where he is involved in micronutrient interventions for prevention and treatment of infections. His current research interests include neonatal and maternal health, malaria in pregnancy, malaria case management, and the integrated community-based management of common childhood illness, malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea. Areas of Interest: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia |
John R. Harris
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Economics, Professor Phone: 617-353-4389Employment Advisor, Government of Indonesia, 1989; Director, African Studies Center, 1975-88; Associate Professor of Economics and Associate Director, Special Program in Regional and Urban Studies of Developing Areas, MIT, 1970-75; Visiting Research Fellow, Institute for Development Studies, University College, Nairobi, 1968–69; Associate Research Fellow, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1965. Publications: “The Effect of Financial Liberalization on the Capital Structure and Investment Decisions of Indonesian Manufacturing Establishments,” The World Bank Economic Review, 1994; Economic Adjustment and Long-Term Development in Uganda, 1987; “Education, Earning and Migration in Indonesia,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 1987; “Towards a More General Search Model,” in Essays on Migration and the Labor Market in Developing Countries, 1982; “Entrepreneurial Attitudes and National Integration: The Nigerian Case,” in Nigeria: Modernization and the Politics of Communication, 1971; “Migration Unemployment and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis,” American Economic Review, 1970. Areas of Interest: Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Liberia, Chad, Togo, Ivory Coast. |
Linda H. Heywood
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College of Arts & Sciences, Professor of History, Director of the African American Studies Program Phone: 617-358-3389Linda Heywood is Professor of History and Director of the African American Studies Program. After having taught at Howard University since 1984, Linda Heywood joined the Boston University faculty in Fall 2003. Her specializations include African history, in particular, the African diaspora. She is the author of Contested Power in Angola, 1840s to the Present (2000).Drs. Linda Heywood and John Thornton won the 2008 Melville J. Herskovits award from the African Studies Association for their book, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660 (Cambridge University Press).Areas of Interest: African diaspora, Angolan history and politics |
John Hutchison
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College of Arts & Sciences, African Studies Center, Associate Professor Emeritus Phone: 617-353-7305MA, PhD, Linguistics (African Studies), Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1971, 1976 John Hutchison is Associate Professor Emeritus of African Languages at Boston University’s African Studies Center and has taught in the African Studies Center’s language program for many years.His interests include: African languages, creole languages (Haitian and Cape Verdean) & linguistics, linguistic and cultural reform of education systems in Africa, curriculum & textbook development in maternal languages; language policy for education in Africa, France’s linguistic and cultural policy, language teaching, language development for use in primary and adult education, textbook development, the politics of publishing in Africa, planning and developing linguistically and culturally relevant curricula, delivering education to rural areas, minority language publishing, and literacy. Languages: Languages: spoken: Bamanakan, French, Hausa, Kanuri/Kanembu, Basic Cape Verdean (Kriolu), Basic Haitian (Créole), Basic Spanish, Swahili; taught: Bamanakan, French, Hausa, Kanuri/Kanembu, Swahili |
Robert H. Jackson
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College of Arts & Sciences, Departments of International Relations, Political Science, Professor Phone: 617-358-0191Robert H. Jackson specializes in international ethics, international law, and the history of international thought. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Jesus College (Oxford University), the London School of Economics, the Hoover Institution (Stanford University), and the University of California at Berkeley. He has lectured at universities in North America, Europe, and Africa and has served on university and government consultancies in Britain, Canada, and Denmark. He also serves on the editorial boards of Political Studies, International Relations, European Journal of International Relations, and Humanistic Perspectives on International Relations. He has won major Canada Council and Killam Foundation of Canada research prizes and fellowships. Professor Jackson is an author or editor of ten books, including Classical and Modern Thought on International Relations (2005) The Global Covenant (2000), Sovereignty at the Millennium (1999), Quasi-States (1990), and Personal Rule in Black Africa (1982). He has co-authored the widely adopted textbook Introduction to International Relations: Theories and Approaches (2nd ed. 2003). He has published in leading international journals, including World Politics, International Organization, Political Studies, Review of International Studies, Millennium, and Diplomacy & Statecraft.Areas of Interest: International relations of the developing world, post-colonial African politics |
David G. Javitch
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Assistant Professor and Co-Director, Section of Geriatrics in the Department of Medicine Phone: 617-638-7796David Javitch is an organizational psychologist, and teaches in Boston University’s School of Public Health, School of Management, and Medical School. He is internationally recognized for his consultation, training, and lecture series on key management and leadership factors; his work focuses on challenges that impact leadership, power, productivity, profitability, teamwork, and other human resources issues. As a leadership specialist, he combines field-proven managerial and psychological methods to enable individuals, teams, and departments to increase organizational success. His unique approach focuses not only on achieving organizational success, but also on continually ensuring success. Fluent in French, he maintains an active national and international training and consultation practice. Javitch has been a visiting professor at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Jagiellonian University in Poland. He has consulted to and trained executives throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, Poland, and Serbia. His most recent book is How to Achieve Power in a Power Driven Society: A 5-Step Approach, a popular management book for leaders facing the challenges of the 21st century. |
Vivian Johnson
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School of Education, Educational Leadership & Development, Emerita Professor Phone: 617-353-3832Vivian R. Johnson is an emerita professor in the School of Education. Her cross-department course with African Studies Associate Karen Boatman focuses on similarities and differences in policy issues in education on the African continent and education of African-Americans in the U.S. |
Sam Kauffmann
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College of Communications, Department of Film & Television, Associate Professor of Film, Director of Film Production Programs Phone: 617-353-7740Sam Kauffmann is an accomplished filmmaker who has filmed in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Uganda and Rwanda. He was recently named a Guggenheim Fellow in Creative Arts. In 2004 was a Fulbright Scholar in Uganda and in 2006 he was a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Rwanda. His most recent film, Kids Living with Slim (2010) recently was awarded a CINE Golden Eagle. It is a follow-up to his 2004 award-winning film Living with Slim: Kids Talk About HIV/AIDS, about children in Africa who are HIV-positive. His film, Massacre at Murambi, which was shot in Rwanda, aired on PBS in 2007. www.samkauffmann.com |
Leslie Kaufman
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Biology; BU Marine Program, Professor Phone: 617-353-5560 Les Kaufman studies aquatic biological diversity, and the processes that create it (speciation), destroy it (extinction), and maintain it (conservation biology). His favorite workhorses are the labroids (damselfishes, cichlids, surfperches, and wrasess), a very species-rich group that includes a big chunk of the world’s lake, reef, and river fishes. His work focuses on why some organisms are more adaptable than others, and how this relates to the ways that they evolve and interact with each other. The lab is involved in two lines of basic research. First is analysis of the evolution of fish species flocks in the Great Lakes of East Africa, with a special focus on Lake Victoria. This project includes biotic survey of the headwaters of the White Nile, and laboratory studies of the morphology, ecology, and genetics of haplochromine cichlids. These are the fastest-evolving, and most rapidly disappearing fishes on earth. Second is a comparative study of skeletal plasticity in several types of fishes, including the cichlids. This work is oriented toward understanding the importance of plasticity in the wild, and the use of fishes as laboratory models for the study of human bone disease. Collectively, these studies employ a variety of methods, including morphometric and computer image analysis; comparative anatomy, kinematics, and histochemistry; field exploration and sampling; systematics; and studies of fish behavior in the laboratory. The goal of the applied research is to develop the science necessary for the conservation of aquatic biological diversity and fishery resources. Currently he is working on ways of preserving and restoring the indigenous species of tropical lakes and coral reefs. Though these systems are geographically and environmentally disparate, the human factors in all of them are very similar, chiefly; eutrophication, overexploitation, and xenobiotics. Understanding of the early life history of fishes is of universal importance in fish conservation, so current projects include a study of the demographics of nursery areas in the Georges Bank fishery, and work on the ecology of recruitment in tropical and temperate reef fishes. |
Gerald T. Keusch
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School of Public Health; School of Medicine, Associate Provost, Associate Dean for Global Health, Professor of Medicine and International Health Phone: 617-638-5234 Keusch is Associate Provost for Global Health at Boston University Medical Center (BUMC) and Associate Dean for Global Health at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). He also serves as Professor of International Health at BUSPH, and Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Keusch played a central role in international health research and policy issues at the NIH since 1998. Under his leadership, the programs of the Fogarty International Center expanded to address not only pressing global issues in infectious diseases, but also critical cross-cutting issues such as the ethical conduct of research, intellectual property rights and global public goods, and the impact of improved health on economic development. Prior to joining the NIH, Keusch served as Faculty Associate and Director of the Health Office of the Harvard Institute for International Development. He also has served as Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts University School of Medicine and the New England Medical Center. Keusch, a graduate of Columbia College and Harvard Medical School, is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. He is the author of more than 300 original publications, reviews and book chapters, and is the editor of eight scientific books. He has received the Squibb, Finland and Bristol awards of the Infectious Disease Society of America and has delivered numerous lectures including the Health-Clark Lecture at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Wesley Spink Lecture at the University of Minnesota, and the William Kirby Lecture at the University of Washington. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. His research has ranged from the molecular pathogenesis of tropical infectious diseases to field research in nutrition, to immunology and host susceptibility, to the epidemiology and pathogenesis of treatment of tropical infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS-related wasting syndrome in African patients. Areas of Interest: global health, international health research and policy |
Giselle Khoury
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Modern Languages & Comparative Literature, Senior Lecturer in Arabic, Head of the Arabic Language Program Phone: 617-358-5852 Dr. Giselle Khoury holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics with a specialty in foreign language acquisition. Dr. Khoury is a Senior Lecturer in Arabic and the Head of the Arabic Language Program at Boston University. In this capacity, she oversees all aspects of the program and her responsibilities include curriculum, syllabi, material, and course development, course scheduling, assigning staff teaching schedules, instructor recruitment, methodological training and professional development of instructors and teaching assistants, and coordination and supervision of all sections. In addition, she advises and mentors instructors and students, conducts classroom observations, designs and coordinates all the extra curricular and cultural activities, ensures coherence and uniform standards within the language program, and handles any and all problems pertinent to the program. Dr. Khoury has an extensive and diverse language teaching experience. She has been teaching languages to learners with widely varying degrees of proficiency – ranging from beginners to advanced levels – and of varying ages, linguistic backgrounds, and cultural heritages. Dr. Khoury is currently administering two federally funded National Security Language Initiative projects at Boston University. She is the Principle Investigator and Program Director of the Academy for Arabic Teachers: STARTALK Arabic Teacher Professional Program (summer 2009 and 2010). Dr. Khoury is also the Coordinator of Project GO (Global Officers) BU, a Department of Defense funded program that aims to increase the number of ROTC students who are linguistically and culturally competent in 5 critical-need languages: Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, Hausa, and Wolof. |
Magaly Koch
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Center for Remote Sensing, Research Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-7302 Dr. Magaly Koch is a geologist specialized in the application of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems in the study of groundwater resources and environmental change of arid lands. She has conducted research on the: (i) estimation of the ground water potential of the Red Sea Hills of eastern Sudan, (ii) evaluation of the geomorphic effects of the Gulf War in Kuwait using pre- and post-war satellite images, (iii) characterization of wetland degradation processes in Spain, and (v) assessment of flash flood potential of ephemeral rivers (wadis) in Egypt, Oman, and United Arab Emirates. In recent years she has been engaged in archaeological studies dealing with the use of remote sensing and GIS (i) to uncover hidden Maya ruins in the thick rainforest and to understand the environmental resources available to this ancient civilization; and (ii) to examine the relationship between landscape evolution and cultural development of the Axumite kingdom in N Ethiopia, and the possible causes for past and present-day land degradation problems in this region. Dr. Koch graduated from the University of Cologne, Germany, in 1986 with a MSc in Geology. Her PhD research, on the use of remote sensing in ground water studies, was undertaken at Boston University, USA, and completed in 1993. Subsequently she was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship by the European Union to undertake post-doctoral research at the Earth Science Institute, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain. Her current post is that of Research Associate Professor at the Remote Sensing Center, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Areas of Interest: Geology, remote sensing and geographic information systems Languages: Spanish, German |
Sanjay Krishnan
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of English, Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-2506 Sanjay Krishnan’s current work focuses on postcolonial and world literatures, the novel, critical theory, and globalization. He is the author of Reading the Global: Troubling Perspectives on Britain’s Empire in Asia (2007). He has an abiding interest in the African novel, which has played an important part in the development of the novel form in the post-colonial and anglophone worlds. Areas of Interest: The novel, post-colonial and world literatures, critical theory, globalization. |
Bruce Larson
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School of Public Health, International Health, Associate Professor Phone: 617.414.1457 Dr. Larson has conducted applied research activities in 25 countries over the past 20 years, mainly in Africa and the former Soviet Union. He has published results from these activities widely in journals and books. Before joining Boston University, Larson was an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut, a Research Associate with the Harvard Institute for International Development, a Research Fellow with Winrock International, and an Agricultural Economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As part of these activities, he was based in Tallinn and Moscow during 1994-1997 and Nairobi in 2005-2006. Larson’s current research focuses on the economic impacts of antiretroviral therapy on individuals, households, and the private sector with a multidisciplinary group of colleagues at BU, the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kericho and Nairobi and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He has worked on a wide range of other topics, including malaria prevention and treatment, and indoor and outdoor air pollution, household health and agricultural production, potable water, deforestation, environmental regulations and international competitiveness, trade and the environment, and eco-labels for environmental protection. |
Margaret Litvin
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College of Arts & Sciences, Modern Languages & Comparative Literature, Assistant Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature Phone: 617-353-6246 Margaret Litvin works on modern Arabic theater and political culture. Her book, Hamlet’s Arab Journey (Princeton University Press, Fall 2011), examines the many reworkings of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in post-colonial Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Her current project explores Cold War-era cultural ties between the Soviet Union and Arab countries, and their effect on Arabic literature. She holds a PhD in Social Thought from the University of Chicago (2006). She has lived in Egypt and traveled extensively to Lebanon and Morocco, and speaks Arabic, Russian, French, and Spanish. Areas of interest: Egypt, Syria, Arab drama, Arab-Soviet cultural ties, intercultural literature. |
Timothy Longman
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Political Science, Associate Professor, Director of African Studies Center Phone: 617-353-9751 Timothy Longman serves as Director of the African Studies Center and is Associate Professor of Political Science. Prior to arriving at BU, he taught for twelve years at Vassar College. He has also taught in the International Human Rights Exchange at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and at the National University of Rwanda. From 1995 to 1996, Dr. Longman served as director of the field office of Human Rights Watch in Rwanda. He has subsequently served as a consultant for HRW, the International Center for Transitional Justice, USAID, and the State Department in Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo. Dr. Longman is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters and of the book Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda (Cambridge University Press.) His work focuses primarily on religion and politics, human rights, ethnic identity and politics, and gender and politics. He studies primarily Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo. Dr. Longman teaches International Human Rights and Problems and Issues of Contemporary Africa. Areas of Interest: Religion and politics, human rights, ethnic identity and politics, gender and politics |
Robert E.B. Lucas
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Economics, Professor Phone: 617-353-4147 Robert Lucas specializes in international trade, industry, and human resources. His recent research has included work on intergenerational economic mobility and several aspects of both internal and international population migrations. He has worked in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Botswana, Egypt, Finland, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Areas of Interest: Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe |
William B. MacLeod
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School of Public Health, Center for International Health & Development, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-1270 Bill MacLeod is a demographer who uses his skills in statistical programming, epidemiology, and biostatistics to lead the International Research Coordinating Center (IRCC) at the Center for International Health & Development (CIHD). The IRCC is responsible for the design, data management, and analysis of the CIHD conducted studies including international multi-center clinical equivalency trials, multi-center efficacy trials, and large-scale household surveys. At CIHD, he also manages a health research grant program in Zambia which focuses on funding policy oriented applied research projects coupled with technical assistance to build research capacity. Bill earned his DSc and MS in Population and International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and his BA in International Relations from the University of California at Davis. He spent three years as a policy analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Recycling Section of the Office of Solid Waste, and two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras. Bill has worked and traveled around the world. SM, ScD, Harvard School of Public Health. Areas of Interest: Statistical programming, epidemiology, and biostatistics |
Joachim H. Maître
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of International Relations; Department of Journalism, Professor; Director, Division of Military Education; Director, Center for Defense Journalism Phone: 617-353-9390 Professor of International Relations and Journalism Professor Maître has served in a variety of academic and journalism positions in North America, Europe, and Africa. He has been a lecturer for the University of Nigeria, a freelance correspondent and editor for Die Welt, Chair and Associate Professor of German at McGill University, Press and Olympic Attaché for the 1076 Olympic Games, and editor-in-chief of Die Welt am Sonntag, the Axel Springer Verlag, and the Ullstein Buchverlag. He is a specialist both in security affairs and in reporting on security affairs, and teaches in the College of Communication’s Department of Journalism as well as in the Department of International Relations at CAS. He is the founder and Director of Boston University’s Center for Defense Journalism and is the editor of the center’s journal, Defense Media Review. He is also the Director of the Division of Military Education, which oversees Boston University’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, the Philadelphia Society, and the PEN American Center. |
Zoliswa O. Mali
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College of Arts & Sciences, Africa Studies Center, Lecturer Phone: 617-358-5137 Zoliswa Mali earned her PhD in second language acquisition focusing on linguistics and technology at the University of Iowa. She is especially interested in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and computer–mediated communication (CMC). She earned a MA (cum laude) in African languages (morphology and syntax) from the University of Stellenbosch, and a BA (Honors) from the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. She also obtained a MA in linguistics at the University of Iowa.Before coming to the United States, she had worked at The University of Fort Hare as a lecturer for isiXhosa linguistics and literature from 1989 to 2000. This was after a decade of teaching and being an administrator in the school system of the Department of Education in South Africa. She also worked as a coordinator of an African Studies Summer Institute that Fort Hare hosted collaboratively with Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., and participated in the development of its curriculum in Andover in 1998. She also worked as a director for a group projects abroad (GPA) program employed by Yale University for the summers of 2002 and 2003 working at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. She founded the isiZulu Program, which she taught for at The University of Iowa from 2000 to 2006, and was later part of the formulation of an autonomous language learning network (ALLNet), in which she later served as a tutor for isiZulu, at The University of Iowa. Dr Zoli Mali has also been an instructor of isiZulu for intensive summer language programs, for the Summer Cooperative African Language Institute (SCALI) at Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind., as well as for the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). She is now a Clinical Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Southern African Languages at Boston University since summer 2007. Other research interests include online instructional materials development as well as study abroad and their impact or effect on L2 acquisition. This feeds her interest in the integration of culture and technology in language teaching. She continues to seek and implement strategies of making foreign language learning not just effective but also fun and this is often reinforced by means of South African music used as a language learning tool. She has developed culture-based websites as well as several online activities to aid in her language instruction and bringing Africa and its culture closer to learners via technology. Languages: Xhosa and Zulu |
James C. McCann
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College of Arts & Sciences, History Professor, Associate Director of African Studies Center Phone: 617-353-7308 Professor McCann is author of Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009); Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New Crop, 1500–2000 (Harvard University Press, 2005); Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa (1999); People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800–1990 (1995); and From Poverty to Famine in Northeast Ethiopia, 1900–1935 (1987) as well as a number of articles, book chapters, and reviews on topics in the history of Ethiopia and Africa. He is the recipient of the 2006 George Perkins Marsh Prize, American Society for Environmental History, and also Honorable Mention 2006 Melville J. Herskovitz Award, African Studies Association. His research has been supported by Fulbright-Hays, the Social Science Research Council, the Ford Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a fellow-in-residence at the National Humanities Center (1991–92) and the Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale University (1998–99). Professor McCann has conducted field research in Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, South Africa, and Lesotho and has twice been invited for testimony by committees of the United States Congress. He has also served as a consultant to Oxfam America, the United Nations Environmental Program, the United Nations Development Program, the Carter Center, Norwegian Redd Barna (Save the Children), American Jewish World Service, and the International Livestock Centre for Africa. Areas of Interest: Agricultural History |
Brenda Gael McSweeney
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College of Arts & Sciences, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, Affiliate Lecturer Phone: 617-358-2370 Brenda Gael McSweeney has spent 30 years working for the United Nations; she joined us as a visiting scholar in September of 2003. She brings with her vast global experience spanning from the grassroots to the policy-making level. She began her UN career in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, living in a West African courtyard and managing the project portfolio of the UN Development Program. After performing various other jobs for the UN, Dr. McSweeney finished her UN career with a five-year posting in India, heading UNDP’s largest program worldwide. The UN Family in India, along with the Indian Government, chose “Promoting Gender Equality” as one of just two priority cross-cutting themes for the UN System’s work in India. |
Samuel Mendlinger
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Metropolitan College, Department of Administrative Sciences, Professor Phone: 617-358-2696 Dr. Mendlinger, BU Global Sustainable Economic Development via Tourism Academic Coordinator, is a dual American-Israeli citizen whose research has resulted in economic development in communities in Asia, Africa, and South America. He holds two patents, and has numerous international publications and grants. His current research and teaching interests include responsible and sustainable economic growth in underdeveloped countries. Mendlinger oversees the Economic Development and Tourism Management concentration for the Master of Science in Administrative Studies, and teaches courses in statistics, culture and development, and economic sustainability in tourist destinations. Professor Mendlinger has worked extensively in agriculture development at the farm level in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Egypt and Botswana and has consulted in several other African countries including Liberia, Mali, South Africa, and Morroco. |
Candace M. Miller
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School of Public Health, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-1216 Candace Miller is an expert in issues of global health and social policy, economic disparities, and household poverty. She received her Masters in Health Sciences from Johns Hopkins University and Doctorate in Science from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Miller focuses on conducting applied research and evaluation, using quantitative and qualitative methods in order to inform governments and the international response to families in poverty and affected by HIV/AIDS. As the Principal Investigator for multiple longitudinal evaluation studies in various countries, Dr. Miller is proficient in conducting field research in resource-poor settings, including study design, quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, and the timely dissemination of findings to a variety of stakeholders. Dr. Miller is also a professor and lecturer with more than 10 years experience in teaching graduate level students, as well as capacity building and training professionals in monitoring and evaluation. Dr. Miller was the Principle Investigator on the Evaluation of the Mchinji Social Cash Transfer in Malawi Africa, the Economic Evaluation of the Mchinji Social Cash Transfer and various other research and evaluation projects in Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabawe. Currently, Dr. Miller is a co-Investigator on a three year mixed methods study of vulnerable children and households in Mozambique. |
Judith M. Mmari
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College of Arts & Sciences, African Studies Center, Lecturer Phone: 617-358-5138 Judith M. Mmari is an experienced Kiswahili instructor, having taught the language in both academic year and summer intensive formats. She was the intermediate Kiswahili instructor in summer 2003 at the Ohio University-Athens Summer Cooperative African Language Institute. She has worked on the development of distance learning materials in Kiswahili and also manages a Kiswahili internet website. |
Imani-Sheila Newsome-Camara
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School of Theology, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-353-3050 For a number of years, Imani-Sheila Newsome-Camera has served in higher education as a professor, academic counselor, and consultant. Her research interests include the womanist idea and spiritual disciplines, and the role of African-American women in church and mission history. Reverend Newsome, who previously served as Associate Dean of Marsh Chapel, the Church at Boston University, was raised in the Church of God in Christ and ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Reverend Newsome recently became a member of the United Methodist Church. |
Fallou Ngom
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Anthropolgy; African Studies Center, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology; Director of the African Language Program Phone: 617-353-7305 Dr. Fallou Ngom’s current research interests include the interactions between African languages and non-African languages, the Africanization of Islam, and Ajami literatures—records of West African languages written in Arabic script. He hopes to help train the first generation of American scholars to have direct access into the wealth of knowledge still buried in West African Ajami literatures, and the historical, cultural, and religious heritage that has found expression in this manner.Another area of Dr. Ngom’s work is language analysis in asylum cases, a sub-field of the new field of forensic linguistics. His work in this field addresses the intricacies of using knowledge of varied West African languages and dialects to evaluate the claims of migrants applying for asylum and determine if the person is actually from the country that he or she claims.Dr. Ngom’s work has appeared in the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Language Variation and Change, and African Studies Review, among others. Areas of Interest: Interaction between African languages and non-African languages and Ajami literatures in West Africa Languages: French: written, spoken (fluent); English: written, spoken (fluent); Wolof: written, spoken (native); Mandinka: written, spoken (fluent); Pula(a)r: written, spoken (fluent); Arabic: written, spoken (conversational); Portuguese Creole: written, spoken (fluent) (Lingua franca in Guinea Bissau); Sereer: conversational; Jóola (Foñi): conversational; Spanish: conversational; Mankagne: conversational; Latin: good knowledge (reading and writing) |
Monica Adhiambo Onyango
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Lecturer Phone: 617-414-1403 Monica Adhiambo Onyango brings over 16 years working in health care programs as a nurse manager, trainer and community health worker. Monica worked for more than six years with international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in relief and development in Southern Sudan, Kenya and Angola, managing community health programs and training health workers. She served in the Kenya Ministry of Health (MOH) for ten years as a nursing officer in management positions at two hospitals, and as a lecturer at the Nairobi Medical Training College School of Nursing. Ms. Onyango has proven ability to start and manage health programs under difficult conditions. She is especially interested in reproductive health, maternal and child health, managing community health services and health care among populations affected by war and natural disasters. She has a Masters degree in Public Health/International Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a Diploma in Advanced Nursing from Nairobi University. She is currently working on her PhD at the William Connell School of Nursing at Boston College, focusing on reproductive health issues among women affected by war. Her experience as a nurse midwife in Southern Sudan in early 1990s was indeed the toughest job but so far the most rewarding. Areas of Interest: Southern Sudan, Kenya, Angola |
Elizabeth Parsons
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School of Theology, Lecturer in Mission Studies & Co-Director of Contextual Education Phone: 617-353-3031 Elizabeth Parsons is an educator and development professional with a background in nonprofit administration that has included academic, community-based, and artistic endeavors. She has lived and worked as a teacher/trainer in Zimbabwe and Zambia and received her PhD in theology and development from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her main research and teaching interests focus on the interaction of worldviews with international development policymaking and practice, especially as these concern experiences of the supernatural and varied ideas of the sacred. Languages: French and Shona |
Marylee F. Rambaud
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School of Education, Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-3832 Dr. Rambaud has directed and advised international education and development projects in West Africa, North Africa, the Middle East and Washington, D.C. Most recently, she worked with Creative Associates International in Washington, D.C. as a senior educational advisor. She co-authored a book, Through My Own Eyes: Single Mothers and the Cultures of Poverty, several publications on childcare policy, early childhood education and socialization as well as case studies on projects in Senegal and Morocco. Dr. Rambaud has taught at all levels in diverse settings, from preschool to training for the Ministry of Agriculture’s Institut National de Recherches Agronomiques (INRA) in Central France, where she lived for 15 years. Dr. Rambaud coordinates the Community Education Leadership program and the Geneva Leadership in Education For All (EFA) summer program in human rights. She teaches Analysis of Education Policies and Practices for International Development; Citizen Participation and Community Development; Community Analysis in International Settings and The Social and Civic Contexts of Education. |
Frances Elizabeth Restrick
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Mugar Memorial Library, Head of African Studies Library Phone: 617-353-3726 After a childhood spent in South Africa, Swaziland, and Mozambique, Beth graduated from Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Mass., with a BA in General Science, minoring in environmental science. Upon graduation, she returned to Maputo, Mozambique, and spent a year volunteering as a librarian, establishing the library at the Seminário Nazereno em Moçambique. She received a MA in Library and Information Science from Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science in 2006, while working full-time as library technician and coordinator at the African Studies Library. Beth was appointed head of the African Studies Library in July 2009. Languages: Portuguese, Zulu |
Ronald K. Richardson
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of History, Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-2551 Ronald K. Richardson is Associate Professor of History at Boston University. He received his PhD from the State University of New York at Binghamton in European history in 1983. He has taught at SUNY Binghamton, the University of Rhode Island, Howard University, and Clark University in Worcester, MA. Professor Richardson was Assistant Dean at URI and Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. His teaching and research areas include intellectual history, the history and culture of imperialism, world history, and Afro-Asian relations. Professor Richardson is the author of Moral Imperium: Afro Caribbeans and the Transformation of British Rule, 1776–1848 (Greenwood Press, 1987). His book Winston S. Churchill: Imagining the Racial Self is forthcoming. |
Dylon Robbins
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College of Arts & Sciences, Romance Studies, Asst Professor of Spanish, Head of Portuguese SectionPhone: 617-353-5849 Professor Robbins teaches courses on Brazil and the Caribbean, including “Race and Culture in the ‘Hispanic’ Caribbean” (spring 2010), “Cannibalism” (spring 2011), “Introduction to Brazilian Cinema” (spring 2011), and “Trance and Political Subjectivity” (fall 2011). His research interests include the cultural and theoretical production of these regions, in addition to that of the African Diasporas in general, with particular concern for intellectual and cultural histories, media, cinema, and popular music. His work is supported by archival research in Brazil as a Fulbright-Hays fellow at the Cinemateca Brasileira and the Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, and in Cuba at the ICAIC, the Biblioteca Nacional, and Casa de las Américas. He has published on Cuban cinema, in addition to Walt Disney and Sergei Eisenstein, and is presently carrying out research related to visual culture and war in the United States in 1898 for a volume edited by Beatriz González Stephan, Cultura visual e innovaciones tecnológicas en América Latina (Editorial Iberoamericana, Vervuert Verlag). His English translations of essays by the Brazilian philosopher Marilena Chaui are included in a forthcoming (April 2011) anthology published by Palgrave Macmillan. He is also working on his book manuscript, Popular Music, Citizenship, and Intellectual Authority in Brazil and Cuba, which approaches these concerns through an examination of four key periods. |
Dana L. Robert
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School of Theology, Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and the History of Mission Phone: 617-353-3064 Dana Robert’s research and teaching interests span the fields of mission history, the history of world Christianity, and mission theology. Her books include Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), African Christian Outreach, Vol 2: Mission Churches (ed., South African Missiological Society, 2003); and Frontiers of African Christianity (ed., University of South Africa Press, 2003). With M.L. Daneel, she edits the book series African Initiatives in Christian Mission (University of South Africa Press). In 2006, she delivered a plenary-level address at the World Sociology Congress in Durban, South Africa, on research among church women in Zimbabwe. |
Wilfrid Rollman
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of International Relations, Lecturer, Fellow at the Center for International Relations Phone: 617-353-9399 Lecturer in International Relations. (BA, Creighton University; MA, PhD, University of Michigan). Specialization: North African and Middle Eastern History and Politics, International Relations of the Middle East, Morocco, Government and Politics in the Contemporary Middle East, European Colonial and Imperial History Professor Rollman is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Wellesley University’s Department of History and a Fellow of the Center for International Relations at Boston University. He has lectured at the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, Harvard University, Northeastern University, and Brandeis University. He has published in such journals as Oriente Moderno, Islamic Legal Studies Program Newsletter, The Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Middle East Journal, and Comparative Studies in Society and History. His most recent article is “Military Officers and the ‘Nizam al-Jadid’ in Morocco, 1844–1912: Social and Political Transformations,” published in Oriente Moderno. Professor Rollman is also a consultant and lecturer for the Smithsonian Institution and Saga Holidays International for Study Tours to Morocco, Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean; and also for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. |
Sydney Rosen
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School of Public Health, Center for International Health & Development, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-1260 Sydney Rosen, is Assistant Professor at the Center for International Health & Development at the Boston University School of Public Health and the coordinator of the center’s Program on the Social and Economic Impacts of the AIDS Epidemic. She is currently residing in South Africa. From her base at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, she leads an interdisciplinary team that is carrying out a set of studies on the impact of HIV/AIDS on public and private organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, the benefits and costs of prevention and treatment interventions, and sectoral and societal responses to the epidemic. She also works on other applied economics projects at the Center, including research on markets for insecticide-treated bed nets and the economics of antimicrobial resistance. Her technical training is in policy analysis and applied economics. She came to the center in 2001 from the Health Office of the former Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID). Before joining the staff of the Health Office, she managed a set of HIID environmental policy projects in the former Soviet Union. She is also the co-founder and former executive director of WorldTeach, Inc., a nonprofit organization that places volunteer teachers in developing countries, and is currently the director of the AIDS Response Fund, Inc., a nonprofit organization that raises funds for AIDS projects in Africa. She holds a BA from Harvard University and a master’s degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. |
Lora Sabin
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School of Public Health, Center for International Health & Development, Department of International Health, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-1272 Lora Sabin is a health and development economist with ten years of experience living and working in Asia. After spending several years in China and Taiwan in the early 1980s as a volunteer teacher, she went back to China in the early 1990s to carry out dissertation research on the development of urban labor markets during China’s first decade of market-oriented reforms. She worked for a number of years at the Harvard Institute for International Development, teaching and researching economic development in East and Southeast Asia and serving as the academic director of the Harvard-managed Fulbright Economics Teaching Center in Ho Chi Minh City. She has been a consultant to international organizations such as the Ford Foundation, UNDP, and UNICEF, as well as local nonprofit organizations that assist low-income populations. In recent years, her research interests have expanded to include HIV/AIDS-related issues in Africa, particularly the situation of orphans in Uganda, as well as the economic impact of HIV/AIDS and the cost-effectiveness of new treatment approaches. With the HIV/AIDS epidemic gaining momentum in China, she began 2004 by joining a multidisciplinary team of Boston-based and Tsinghua University faculty that carried out an intensive HIV/AIDS-focused public policy training program in Beijing. Languages: English, Mandarin Chinese |
Robert B. Seidman
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Program on Legislative Drafting for Demoratic Social Change, Professor Emeritus (Retired) Phone: 617-353-3140 Robert Seidman has been a distinguished member of the School of Law faculty since 1972. His work includes several books on law and development, as well as articles on comparative law of the developing and transitional worlds. With his wife, Adjunct Professor Ann Seidman, he has served as chief technical consultant to United Nations-sponsored programs that are helping the Chinese government achieve economic reforms and strengthen legislative drafting. Together, they have implemented similar programs in the Lao P.D.R., South Africa, Belize, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, Bhutan, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Guyana. Early in his career, Professor Seidman spent several years in private practice in New York and Connecticut. He also taught law in Africa, at the Universities of Ghana and Lagos, and at the University of Wisconsin. In addition to his teaching responsibilities at BUSL, he has served as a visiting professor at the Universities of Dar es Salaam, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the University of Witswatersrand, as well as a consultant to various ministries of Zimbabwe. |
Ann Seidman
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School of Law, Adjunct Professor Phone: 617-353-4369 An institutionalist economist (MA, Columbia University, 1956; PhD, University of Wisconsin, 1968), Professor Ann Seidman has conducted research and taught in universities for 49 years, 13 of them in developing countries. She taught in the universities of Ghana, (1962–66), Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1968–70), Zambia (1972–74) and Zimbabwe (1980–83). In 1995 she served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Witswatersrand, South Africa.In 1988–9, as Fulbright Professors in Peking University in Beijing, Professor Ann Seidman taught economics, and together with Professor Robert B. Seidman taught law and development. That led to their appointment as consultants to the Bureau of Legislative Affairs (the drafting arm of China’s equivalent of Cabinet). There, they helped train Chinese drafters in drafting 21 priority bills to implement China’s Reform and Open Policy (1992–7). In the 1990s, together with Prof. R.B. Seidman, she founded the BU Program on Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social Change and became an Adjunct Professor in Boston University’s School of Law. In 2004, the Seidmans, working with colleagues in almost 40 countries, transformed the BU Program into the International Consortium for Law & Development. For several years, Professor Ann Seidman served on the Board of Directors of the African Studies Association (ASA) and, in 1990, became ASA President. She has written, co-authored, and edited over 80 articles and some 20 books. She, and R.B. Seidman, together with Nalin Abeyesekera, co-authored Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social Change. A Manual for Drafters (Kluwer, 2001), now translated into more than 10 languages. The Seidmans served as editors for Africa’s Challenge: Using Law for Good Governance and Development; and are currently editing a resource book, Using Law to Improve Health: An East Africa Project, for a forthcoming workshop co-sponsored by the African Parliamentary Knowledge Network and the East African Community Legislative Assembly. In the 2009 fall term, they co-taught a BUSLAfrica e-Parliament legislative drafting clinic to engage BU law students in drafting laws, justified by research reports, at the request of members of the African Parliamentary Knowledge Network. |
Parker Shipton
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Anthropology; African Studies Center, Professor Phone: 617-353-8904 Parker Shipton is Professor in the Department of Anthropology. His PhD is from Cambridge University. He has conducted field research in Kenya, the Gambia, Colombia, and elsewhere. He has held visiting appointments at Yale, the Universities of Virginia, Nairobi, and Padua, and at Waseda University. He is the author of The Nature of Entrustment: Intimacy, Exchange, and the Sacred in Africa and won the 2008 Melville J. Herskovits award from the African Studies Association for the best book in African Studies for 2007 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press). He has also authored Mortgaging the Ancestors: Ideologies of Attachment in Africa (Yale U. Press, 2009. Finalist for Herskovits Award, 2010.), Credit Between Cultures: Farmers, Financiers, and Misunderstanding in Africa (Yale U. Press, 2010. Finalist for Herskovits Award, 2011.) and Bitter Money: Cultural Economy and Some African Meanings of Forbidden Commodities; and many articles and book chapters. Co-edited publications include Seeking Solutions: Framework and Cases for Small Enterprise Development Programs; and Rights over Land: Categories and Controversies. For Blackwell Publishers, he has served as the Series Editor of the Peoples of Africa series and is the founding Series Editor of the Blackwell Anthologies in Social and Cultural Anthropology.Current interests include symbolic and economic anthropology, and the history of the social sciences and philosophy, particularly concerning Africa and first peoples of America. He a former president of the Association for Africanist Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association. |
Caroly Shumway
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Biology, Adjunct Assistant Professor Phone: 617-353-2432 Behavioral neurobiology, evolution, behavior in aquatic conservation, conservation of aquatic biodiversity.My lab at the New England Aquarium has three programmatic areas:1) The evolution of complex brains and behaviors in African cichlid fishes; 2) The use of behavior as a conservation tool; 3) conservation of aquatic biodiversity. |
Jonathon Lee Simon
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Associate Professor and Chair Phone: 617-414-1260 Jonathon Lee Simon, MPH, DSc, is the Chair of the Department of International Health, Director of the Center for International Health, and Associate Professor of International Health at BUSPH. He received his BS in Conservation and Resource Studies and his MPH from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Simon received his Doctorate of Science from the Harvard University School of Public Health, having completed dissertation research on the changing demography of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has been involved in applied child health research activities for more than 20 years, working in more than 20 developing countries. Before joining Boston University, Dr. Simon was a Fellow of the Harvard Institute for International Development, where he was Principal Investigator for a large multi-country applied research project. During his tenure at HIID, he was resident in Pakistan for two years as the regional advisor. Dr. Simon has had extensive experience working in Africa, particularly on issues including child survival, infectious diseases, and capacity strengthening. He has recently been involved in a new area of research, evaluating the economic impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on sectors of the African economy. |
Michael Sorenson
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College of Arts & Sciences, Biology, Professor and Chair Phone: 617-353-2432 My research emphasizes molecular genetic approaches to problems in avian systematics, population biology, and behavioral ecology. Avian brood parasitism spurred my interest in evolutionary biology as a student, and parasitic birds have continued to be the focus of much of my work. Current research includes: 1) Analyses of the population structure and evolutionary history of indigobird populations and species. Indigobirds are species-specific brood parasites of a number of estrildid finch hosts and have evolved nestling mouth markings that mimic those of the host. Parasitic nestlings also learn host songs and adult male parasites incorporate these songs into their courtship displays, resulting in assortative mating among parasites reared by the same host species. We are exploring the evolutionary history and population genetic consequences of this unique social system using large multilocus data sets and analyses based on coalescent theory. The work has included recent field work in Cameroon and Tanzania. 2) Molecular systematic analyses of the various groups of avian brood parasites. How many times has obligate brood parasitism evolved in birds, what are the relative ages of the various parasitic lineages, and how is each group of parasitic birds related to their hosts? 3) Molecular systematics and population genetics of the waterfowl (Family Anatidae: the ducks, geese, and swans). Students in my lab have worked on fish, bats, ants, and a variety of other birds, addressing various questions in evolutionary ecology and systematics. |
Charles R. Stith
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African Presidential Archives & Research Center, Director Phone: 617-353-5452 Prior to assuming his present position as the Director of the African Presidential Archives & Research Center at Boston University, Ambassador Stith presented his Letter of Credence as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to the United Republic of Tanzania in September 1998. He served as the Ambassador in the traumatic period after the August 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam. Stith worked with the Tanzanian government to enable them to become the first sub-Saharan African country to reach the decision point for debt relief under the enhanced Heavily-Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). Ambassador Stith is a graduate of Baker University, the Interdenominational Theological Center’s Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, and Harvard University Divinity School (ThM). He is the founder and former National President of the Organization for a New Equality (O.N.E.), which focuses on expanding economic opportunities for minorities and women. Most notably during his tenure at O.N.E., he helped negotiate and broker the first comprehensive community reinvestment agreement in the country. He was one of the architects of the regulations redefining the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which has resulted in nearly $2 trillion in credit and capital for low and moderate income communities and communities of color. Ambassador Stith has an appointment in the Faculty of the Boston University Department of International Relations and presently teaches a course on Africa and Globalization. He is the author of Political Religion (Abingdon Press, 1995) and many articles, which have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Denver Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and the Chicago Sun Times. |
John Stone
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Sociology, Professor, Chair Phone: 617-358-2387 John Stone’s research interests focus on comparative race and ethnic relations, international migration, social change and sociological theory. He is the founder and editor of Ethnic and Racial Studies (Routledge, 1978–1989). Areas of Interest: South Africa, race relations |
Donald M. Thea
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Professor; Scientific Director of Applied Research in Child Labor Phone: 617-414-1271 Donald Thea has pursued a full-time career in both domestic and international clinical and epidemiological infectious disease research, primarily HIV and AIDS. Donald was a member of Project SIDA (Kinshasa, Zaire), the first international clinical AIDS field site, where he was the Director of the Clinical Research Unit. He pursued his interest in perinatal HIV transmission as the Principal Investigator of the New York City Perinatal HIV Transmission Study. He then joined the Health and Social Development Unit of the Harvard Institute for International Development where he focused on international field research in Acute Respiratory Illness, Malaria and HIV. Donald joined the IH department along with the other members of the Harvard team and is currently the Principal Investigator of a prospective cohort study of postnatal HIV through breastmilk (the Zambia Exclusive Breastfeeding Study) and the Zambia Boston University Malaria Project ZAMBUMP, as well as providing oversight to numerous additional clinical work being implemented in Africa, Latin America and Asia. He received his MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and was trained in tropical medicine at the London School of Hygiene and in infectious diseases at New England Medical Center. |
John K. Thornton
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College of Arts & Sciences, Departments of History and African American Studies, Professor Phone: 617-353-2551 After having taught at Millersville University since 1986, John Thornton joined the Boston University faculty in Fall 2003. His specializations include Africa and the Middle East, as well as world history. He is the author of The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641–1718 (1983); Africa and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (1992); The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706 (1998); Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500–1800 (1999); and is now working (with Linda Heywood) on Angolans in the Early Anglo-Dutch Atlantic, 1615–50 (under contract with Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and the Formation of the Anglo-Dutch Americas). |
Yesim Tozan
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-1209 Yesim Tozan, PhD, is Assistant Professor of International Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Tozan holds positions as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and is a guest researcher at the Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies at the FIC/NIH. Dr. Tozan’s research focuses on two interrelated areas: (1) understanding the impact of interventions and policies on population health and its determinants, and (2) linking the impact of public health interventions to socioeconomic consequences through economic evaluation methods. Over the past years, Dr. Tozan has focused on the disease and socioeconomic burden and control of malaria. Her research projects include: (1) epidemiology, burden and socioeconomic costs of neurocognitive sequelae following severe falciparum malaria in young children, (2) cost-effectiveness of pre-referral treatment of severe childhood malaria with artesunate suppositories at the community level, and (3) design, monitoring, and evaluation of multi-intervention health programs. Dr. Tozan served as a Task Force Associate for UN Millennium Project’s Task Force on HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis and Access to Essential Medicines and was the lead author of the Task Force report on Malaria, “Coming to Grips with Malaria in the New Millennium.” Dr. Tozan is currently the Principal Investigator of an evaluative case study funded by the WHO’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health, investigating the policy and implementation process of the Millennium Villages Project, a rural multi-sectoral development project, in Kenya. At BUSPH, Dr. Tozan teaches IH 890 Quantitative Methods and Modeling for Public Health Decision Making.PhD in Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs, Princeton University, 2004; MA in Public Affairs, Princeton University, 2001; MSc in Environmental Technology, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, 1998; BSc in Environmental Engineering, Department of Environmental Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey, 1996.Areas of Interest: International Public Health, Health Policy and Planning, Health Economics Languages: Turkish, Kiswahili |
Sushil Vachani
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School of Management, Department of Strategy & Policy, Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-4406 Sushil Vachani’s research focuses on multinational-government relations, impact of nongovernmental organization on international business, management of diversified multinationals, management in developing countries, and internationalization of small firms. |
Hannelore Vanderschmidt
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School of Medicine, Center for Educational Development in Health; Health Policy Institute, Co-Director; Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-4528 Competency-based training of health professionals; curriculum development; preventative medicine teaching programs; primary health care in developing countries; planning and evaluation of primary health care projects; research on substance abuse; violence and sexual risk factors of young teens. |
Margaret Rose Vendryes
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of History of Art & Architecture, Lecturer Margaret Rose Vendryes received her AB in fine arts from Amherst College, MA in art history from Tulane University, and a second MA and PhD in art history from Princeton University. She taught at Princeton University and Amherst College before entering the faculty at York College and the Graduate Center of City University of New York as Associate Professor of Art History in 2000. Vendryes is curator of Beyond the Blues: Reflections on African America from the Amistad Research Center Fine Arts Collection, the first large-scale exhibition and catalog of this seminal collection of work by African American artists (2010). Since moving to the Boston area in 2007, Vendryes has returned to painting and continues her connection to art history through adjunct teaching, lecturing, and writing. Her book Barthé, A Life in Sculpture, the first monograph on the late African American sculptor Richmond Barthé, was published by University Press of Mississippi in 2008. |
Taryn Vian
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School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Associate Professor Phone: 617-414-1447 Taryn Vian specializes in management, finance, and anticorruption strategies for the health sector. She has conducted assessments of vulnerability to corruption in countries in Southern Europe and Central Asia, and contributed to USAID’s agency-wide strategy document on anticorruption. Recent publications include a qualitative study of informal payments in Albania (Social Science and Medicine) and a chapter in Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report 2006, which focuses on corruption and health. Vian has worked as a management consultant in Lesotho, Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and Zambia, among other countries, and was project team leader in the Philippines, where she managed a multimillion dollar project to decentralize child survival and family planning services. She also lived in Cameroon as a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 1980s. In the U.S., Vian has held senior positions in health care decision support companies. She teaches Preventing Corruption in Health Programs and Financial Management for International Health. Languages: French |
Susan Walker
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College of Communications, Department of Journalism, Associate Professor Phone: 617-353-5806 Susan Walker is a veteran television producer, currently helping corporate clients from Nokia group to Agilent Technologies use video and the Internet to communicate. She worked as a TV newscast and series producer for more than 25 years, winning several national awards. She has also produced corporate videos, web video clips, and two children’s pilots designed for the Internet and television. Walker teaches BU students how to set up, shoot, write, and edit television news packages as well as produce newscasts and news websites. |
Brenda Waning
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School of Medicine, Family Medicine, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-6318 Needs updating. |
David M. Westley
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Mugar Memorial Library, African Studies Library, African Bibliographer Phone: 617-353-3726 David Westley is the bibliographer at the African Studies Library. His publications include Mental Health and Psychiatry in Africa: An Annotated Bibliography (London: Hans Zell, 1993); The Mfecane: An Annotated Bibliography (Madison: University of Wisconsin African Studies Program, 1999); and A Bibliography of Swahili Language and Linguistics (Madison: University of Wisconsin African Studies Program, 2001. Areas of Interest: African languages and oral traditions, African language literatures, South African history |
Roberta F. White
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School of Public Health; School of Medicine, Department of Environmental Health, Professor and Chair Phone: 617-278-4517 Roberta White became Chair of the Department of Environmental Health in June 2003. A neuropsychologist, Dr. White studies the effects of exposures to industrial chemicals and chemical pollutants on brain function, using both behavioral measures and neuroimaging techniques. She has studied occupational lead exposures in adults, environmental lead exposure in children, prenatal exposure to methylmercury and polychlorinated biphenyls from maternal diet, and solvent exposures in children and adults. A current project examines the effects of prenatal pesticide exposure among farm workers in South Africa. Recent brain neuroimaging studies include functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in adolescents with prenatal exposure to methylmercury and biphenyls, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) of lead-exposed workers, and structural MRI in Gulf War veterans. She has also studied the neurocognitive sequelae of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease and is interested in gene-environment interactions underlying these disorders. Dr. White holds appointments in the Neurology and Psychology departments at BU and has trained over 100 students in environmental health, behavioral neuroscience, behavioral neurology, and neuropsychology. |
Michael Woldemariam
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College of Arts and Sciences, Department of International Relations, Assistant Professor Phone: 617.353.9580 Michael Woldemariam is a specialist on African politics, international security, political violence and conflict, and post-conflict governance and institution building. HIs doctoral dissertation focused on African insurgencies in Ethiopia and Mozambique and sought to explain the dynamics of factionalism and fragmentation in rebel organizations, building on fieldwork in those two countries and in refugee communities in Europe and North America. He has numerous fellowship awards, including serving as Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation fellow, an Africanist Doctoral Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and an American Political Science Association Minority Fellow. He also has conducted field studies in Somaliland, South Africa, and India. Woldemariam earned his BA at Beloit College in political science and sociology and his PhD from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. |
Diana Wylie
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College of Arts & Sciences, Department of History and African Studies Center, Professor Phone: 617-353-6645 Professor Wylie has published on Eastern, North, and Southern African history as well as the history of the British empire, including A Little God, The Twilight of Patriarchy in a Southern African Chiefdom (1990) and Starving on a Full Stomach: Hunger and the Triumph of Cultural Racism in Modern South Africa (2001, named Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 2002, and winner of the Herskovits Prize of the African Studies Association, 2002), Art and Revolution, The Life and Dealth of Thami Mnyele, South African Artist (2008) and Enchantment: Pictures from the Tangier American Legation Museum (2010). She has lived and worked in six African countries: Kenya, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Botswana, and South Africa. Before arriving at Boston University, she taught at Yale University. She spent a year teaching at the University of Oran, Algeria. In 2002 she won Boston University’s Metcalf Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2003 was named Associate Dean for Faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences. She was a National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor from 2008-11. She earned her PhD in History at Yale University. Areas of Interest: Kenya, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Botswana, and South Africa Languages: French, working knowledge of Swahili, Dutch, and Setswana |
Kojo Yeboah-Antwi
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School of Public Health, Center for Global Health & Development, Assistant Professor Phone: 617-414-1275 Yeboah-Antwi is a physician, a public health specialist and a researcher with more than twenty years of experience in managing health systems, program and project implementation and evaluation, development research, and policy and strategy development. His research interests include malaria micronutrients, and maternal and child health. Areas of Interest: Malaria micronutrients and maternal and child health |