Student and Alumni Notes

Student Notes:

Abel Djassi Amado studies African politics, with particular focus on Lusophonne African states (projected graduation date: 2011). He is interested in politics of national reconstruction in Angola (post-civil war national reconstruction) as well as politics of development/underdevelopment in the Lusophone African space. For the acadmic year 2008/2009, Abel Djassi is the graduate assistant to the WARA/WARC at the BU African Studies Center.

Cedony Allen is a second year doctoral student in the anthropology department and is interested in reproductive health, specifically family planning practices in Senegal.

Christopher M. Annear is a PhD candidate in anthropology in his final year of writing. His work considers issues of common-pool resources, ecological, and policy engagement among populations living in the Mweru-Luapula fishery shared by Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has published articles on the politics of autochthony and resource use in the Journal of Political Ecology (2008, in press) and genetically modified foods in Zambia (Gastronomica, 2004).

Anne Blaschke is a fifth-year PhD student in the history department at BU. She is interested in mid-20th century connections between Africa and the United States, particularly in the areas of racial politics and sports.

Alfredo Burlando is a graduate student in the Economics department. He is working on determinants of labor and leisure in Tanzania, and on health and education in Ethiopia.

Lynsey Farrell is a PhD candidate in Department of Anthropology. She is currently conducting field research in Nairobi, Kenya -- looking at urbanization, nationalism and ethnicity in the informal settlement of Kibera and is also directing a study abroad program for American University students in Nairobi.

Melissa Graboyes is a doctoral candidate in the history department; she has masters in both history and public health. She is currently writing her dissertation with an anticipated graduation of May 2010.

Nicole Hayes is a PhD candidate in anthropology. She is currently living at home in Ontario, Canada, where she is entering her last year of dissertation writing. Her work focuses on models of heterosexual relationships and HIV/AIDS education in Southern Malawi.

Catherine Long is the ASPH/CDC Alan Rosenfield Intenational Health Fellow for 2008-2009. She will be stationed in Tanzania and working with PEPFAR policy.

Vincent K. Machozi is a student in the School of Theology. His area of study is theology, philosophy and social ethics.

Shandirai Mawokomatanda is completing his doctorate in theology (Th.D). His area of study is social and ecological ethics with a minor in global ethics and African studies.

Bill McCoy is a PhD candidate in the history department. His research focuses on the history of leprosy care in Swaziland, a subject thatintersects with his interests in social history and the history of Christianity in Africa. Bill and his wife Erin recently welcomed a new baby to their home.

Natalie Mettler is a history major (projected PhD completion in 2012). She is interested in Bamana Mali, ethnobotany and culinary knowledge, and environmental history.

Chelsea Strayer is a PhD candidate in Biological and Cultural Anthropology and just completed her dissertation fieldwork in Ghana on the biological and cultural interactions in Asante indigenous healing rituals. She is currently writing my dissertation in Baltimore, MD.

Sarah Westwood is a PhD student in the Department of History (projected PhD completion 2013). Her focus is military history in West Africa, particularly the history of conflict in Sierra Leone and Liberia. She is also interested in Atlantic history, specifically the African diaspora in the Americas. Her work has involved a great deal of language training in French, Pulaar and Arabic; she plans to spend part of her third year studying the use of Ajami script in Pulaar and Wolof texts.

Deyu Zhao is a graduate student working on a master's degree in Economics, with a specific interest in Development Economics and International Economics. Deyu completed an internship with the United Nations Development Program and while a summer fellow at the Pardee Center of Boston University completed a paper on African landlocked countries. He expects to graduate in 2010.

Alumni Notes:

Teferi Abate (PhD, Anthropology, 2000) has been named chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Addis Ababa University.

Peter Alegi (PhD, History, 2000) has been an Assistant Professor of History at Michigan State University since 2005. He works on South African social and cultural history and teaches courses in South African and African history, as well as sport and African Studies. He is the author of Laduma! Soccer, Politics, and Society in South Africa (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004).

Ibrahim Bashir (PhD, History, 1983) is now director of studies at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Nigeria. He was in Boston recently to develop a linkage program with the BU School of Management.

Belete Bizuneh (PhD, History, 2008) has joined the Department of History at Addis Ababa University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Carrie Cafaro (MPH, International Health, 2008) is a Health Systems Management and Quality Improvement Specialist in Lesotho for Lesotho-Boston Health Alliance.

Jamie Clearfield (EdM, International Educational Development, 2009) is working with Support for International Change (www.sichange.org) as a project officer in Tanzania. She recently completed her masters work studying urbanization and social change, and will be joining her new organization to work in HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness and leadership training in Arusha and Babati, Tanzania.

Barbara Cooper (PhD, History, 1992) teaches at Rutgers University, is Director of the African Studies Program, and is author of Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel. For this book Barbara Cooper received the Melville J. Herskovits Prize for the Best Book in African Studies for 2006 from the African Studies Association.

Tim Docking (PhD, Political Science, 1999) is Senior Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Prior to joining MCC, Tim was a White House Fellow and before that worked for three years as an African affairs specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Tanya DeWolfe (MA, International Education Development, 2008) works with secondary-level educational policies regarding orphans and other vulnerable children in the province of Manicaland in Zimbabwe, as well as with schools on Youth Empowerment Programmes.

Kevin Dunn (PhD, Political Science, 2000) is Associate Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. His monograph Imagining the Congo was published by Palgrave in 2003. He has also co-edited three books: Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory (with Timothy M. Shaw; 2001), Identity and Global Politics (with Patricia Goff; 2004) and most recently African Guerrillas (with Morten Boas; 2007). He has two daughters who bring him much joy.

Anita Fabos (PhD, Anthropology, 1999) is teaching in the Department of Anthropology at the American University in Cairo. She has received funding for research on the cultural aspects of Egyptian nationalism and how these pertain to Egyptian immigration and refugee policy. Anita is also involved in a refugee studies program starting up at AUC.

Ama Baidu Forson (MA, Economics, 2007) is currently in Philadelphia working for an international company that focuses on economic and financial analysis in Africa.

Heidi Gengenbach (MA, History) completed her PhD dissertation at the University of Minnesota on history and memory among Mozambican women.
The thesis won the Gutenberg-e prize of the American Historical Association and was published as an electronic book entitled Binding Memories: Women as Makers and Tellers of History in Magude, Mozambique by Columbia University Press in 2005.

Erik Gilbert (PhD, History, 1997) is now Professor of History at Arkansas State. His dissertation was published as Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar (2004). Erik has also published with coauthor and ASC alum Jonathan Reynolds, Africa in World History (2004) and Trading Tastes: Commodity and Cultural Exchange to 1750 (2006). A second edition of Africa in World History was released with an '07 copyright. A Chinese translation of the first edition of Africa in World History was also released this year.

Nancy J. Hafkin (PhD, History, 1974) has retired from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and settled in the Greater Boston area. The Association for Progressive Communication (APC) has announced the "Hafkin Prize" to honor her work as a pioneer in the area of networking, development information, and electronic communications in Africa, over the course of a 23-year career.

Gwyn Hainsworth, (Ed.M., International Educational Development, 1995) currently works as a Senior Advisor for Pathfinder International where she provides technical and strategic direction for their global youth
portfolio. Gwyn spends roughly 50% of her time overseas, usually in SSA countries, providing technical assistance to Pathfinder programs. Currently, she works in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Mozambique.

Tom Herlehy (PhD, History, 1985) reports with pleasure that he is joining the CARANA Corporation effective 10/9/07 and will be based in Accra, Ghana with a regional office in Dakar, Senegal. This move results from CARANA's winning of a $40 million contract with the USAID Ghana Mission for phase 2 of the West African Trade Hub. Tom looks forward to leading this export promotion project spanning most of West Africa. He can be contacted through the CARANA Corporation offices in Arlington Virginia. He welcomes hearing from fellow BU ASC alumni who pass through the area and can be reached at therlehy@watradehub.com (www.watradehub.com)

Heather Hoag (PhD, History, 2003) is an Assistant Professor of African History at the University of San Francisco. She is also the Director of African Studies and is involved in developing USF's International Studies and Environmental Studies programs. She specializes in environmental history with an emphasis in water and economic development. Her work on hydropower development has been published in a number of journals and in African Water Histories: Transdisciplinary Discourses (North-West University, 2005).

Stacy E. Holden (PhD, History, 2005) is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Civilization in the History at Purdue University. While a grad student at Boston University, she had the opportunity to work and study in Mauritania, Mali, Tunisia, and Egypt. Her research interests, however, led her to Morocco, where she traced foodways in Fez in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is now working on a manuscript entled The Environment of Power: Famine and Authority in Modern Morocco. Professor Holden has published articles and commentaries not only on the history of Morocco, but also the present-day political situation in Mauritania, Iran and Iraq.

Whitney Huss (Ed.M, International Educational Development, 2008)
is working out in Los Angeles for Boston University. Her area of academic specialization was French Speaking Africa and Development Communication. Whitney would be happy to have students contact her for information regarding research, internships, and conferences, to share her many contacts in Burkina Faso and Niger.    

Thomas Johnson teaches African and world history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and also works in BU's Mugar Library.

Israel Katoke (PhD History, 1969) visited the African Studies Center for the first time in many years recently and shared the news that he is vice chancellor of the new University of Bukoba in Tanzania, which he is helping to develop.

Emmanuel Konde (PhD, History, 1991) is chair of the Department of History at Knoxville College in Tennessee.

Julie Livingston (MA, History, 1993) is Associate Professor of History and also teaches in the Institute of Health at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. Her office is across the hall from Barbara Cooper's.

Jane Martin (PhD, History, and former outreach coordinator) has purchased her first home in a small town in Pennsylvania. Although Jane is retired from the African-American Institute, she is still busy working with the African art collection at Scranton's Everhart Museum, tutoring English, playing Bach on her grand piano, and traveling with friends.

Akin Ogundiran (PhD, Archaeology, 2000) is Associate Professor of History and director of African-New World Studies at Florida International University. He is an archaeologist and a cultural historian. He has conducted research in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the United States. He is currently researching Oyo Imperialism in the Bight of Benin and Yoruba culture in the Atlantic world. His research has been funded by Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation-supported programs, among others. Author of several publications, his latest book (co-edited with Toyin Falola) is Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora (Indiana University Press, August 2007). He is the recipient of 2006 University of Texas Africanist Award for Research Excellence. 

William Oweke Ojwang (PhD, Biology, 2006) is a Senior Research Officer with the Kenja Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) based at Kisumu City, Kenya. He coordinates research activities in Lake Turkana, conducts research (fish biology and ecology) in Lake Victoria and leads an environmental awareness program in the Kenyan portion of Lake Victoria.

Jeanne Penvenne (PhD, History, 1982) is Associate Professor of History and Core Faculty in International Relations, Women's Studies and Africa in the New World Studies at Tufts University. Her book African Workers and Colonial Racism was a finalist for the 1994 Herskovits Award. Her field is urban and labor history of Mozambique and the former Portuguese African colonies. Her current research "Seeking Gendered Perspectives - Urbanization, Labor Migration and the Cashew-Shellers of Mozambique, 1945-1975" centers men's and women's experiences equally in Southern African urban migration analyses.

Jonathan Reynolds (PhD, History, 1995) teaches African history at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights and has an active musical career on the side. Jonathan wrote many of the songs and played guitar, bass, or sang on most of the tracks on the 1996 CD "Original Sins" by Defenders of the Faith.

Katsuki Sakai (MPH, International Health, 2009) is a Communications Program Coordinator at the non-profit organization in Cambridge, MA. Her field is women's education and health in Southern Africa, especially in South Africa. She also has a deep interest on water privatization and environment of South Africa. She speaks Zulu, English, and Japanese.

Jennifer Seif (MA, History) has taken up a new post with an NGO in Pretoria. She is now working for the IUCN (World Conservation Union) office in Pretoria, managing an independent program called "Fair Trade in Tourism in South Africa." She hopes some day to return to serious writing on her anthropology dissertation for the University of Chicago.

Michael Sheridan (PhD, Anthropology, 2001) is an Assistant Professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. He has published in American Anthropologist and the Journal of African History, and his co-edited volume on African sacred groves comes out in early 2008. He and his wife Kristina have two children, Gaia and Kieran.

Marc Sommers (PhD, Anthropology, 1994) is an Associate Research Professor of Humanitarian Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University and a Research Fellow at Boston University’s African Studies Center. Dr. Sommers has recently won a Senior Fellowship from the Jennings Randolph (JR) Program for International Peace at the United States Institute of Peace for 2009-2010. Beginning October 1, Prof. Sommers will be based at USIP's Washington, DC office for 10 months to write a book currently entitled "Youth, Popular Culture and Terror Warfare: Insights from Sierra Leone."

Prof. Sommers' 2005 field research in Sierra Leone revealed the leading role that hip hop artist Tupac Shakur, the Rambo movie character and reggae musician Bob Marley played in Sierra Leone’s civil war. It also detailed the influence of Tupac Shakur and other popular culture icons on youth adaptations to post-war life. Drawing on this field data, and prior field research in Sierra Leone, with Sierra Leonean refugees, and with ex-combatant youth in other contexts, the book promises to shed new light on how Western popular culture icons contribute to the practice of war and how youth customize peaceful responses to it.

Steven Thomson (PhD, Anthropology, 2006) is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA.

Doug Wheeler (PhD, History, 1963). Retired from a career in the History Department, University of New Hampshire (1965-2006), but continues teaching History part-time at Granite State College in New Hampshire. His book, Angola (1971) is being published in a new Portuguese edition in Lisbon. He is the recipient of two decorations from the Government of Portugal. He has visited Angola twice in recent years, but continues to reside in Durham, NH.

E. Frances White (PhD, History) is Dean of the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.

Keep in touch!

If you change jobs, publish a book, move to Tibet, or have other life experiences you would like to share, please send your news to Anne Bellows (abellows@bu.edu) so that it can be included here. Please also let Anne know if you would like to have your e-mail or other address listed here; address information will not be shared without your explicit permission.