Directory
Program Head
Interim Director of African Studies
Professor of Applied Linguistics and African Studies
(814) 863-2431
Area(s) of Specialization: Language policy and planning, Security studies, Language and health, Southern epistemologies and ontologies
Core Faculty
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Associate Teaching Professor of African Studies
(814) 865-5257
Area(s) of Specialization: Science and technology in Africa, Education in Africa, Globalization, African politics, Multiculturalism, Economic development in Africa, Peace and conflict studies
Associate Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African Studies
(814) 865-2372
Area(s) of Specialization: Representations of Islam in Africa, African feminism, South African literature, Race and Sexuality, Slavery in South Africa, Food studies, Visual art in South Africa
Visiting Assistant Professor of African Studies and Asian Studies
Area(s) of Specialization: Afro-Asian Connections, Indian Ocean World Cultures, Oceanic Humanities, Africana Religions, Colonialism, Memory and Embodied Practices, African Material Cultures, Postcolonial Ethnographies, Multimodal Methodologies, Digital Humanities
Associate Teaching Professor
(814) 867-3553
Area(s) of Specialization: Language socialization, Language ideology, Language and law, Language policy and planning, Discourse analysis, Multimodal translanguaging
Assistant Teaching Professor of African Studies
Coordinator of African Studies Brown Bag Series, 2017-2021
(814) 865-0760
Area(s) of Specialization: Agro-pastoral sustainability, environmental change and society, natural resource conflicts, political ecology, Sub-Saharan Africa, and international development
Professor of African Studies and Political Science
Interim Director of Graduate Studies
(814) 863-5815
Area(s) of Specialization: Security in the Horn of Africa, Extractive industries and commercial farming in Africa
Assistant Teaching Professor of African Studies and Anthropology
Area(s) of Specialization: Development and Sustainability, Community-Based Natural Resources and Management, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Agricultural and Pastoral Systems, Participatory Methods
Assistant Professor of Geography, African Studies, and Anthropology
(814) 865-1187
Area(s) of Specialization: Biodiversity and Nutrition, Wild and forest foods, Dietary patterns and dietary diversity, Traditional food systems, Applied research for improved policy and practice
Assistant Professor of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management and African Studies
Area(s) of Specialization: Sustainability, Well-Being, and Livelihoods, Ecotourism and Community Based Tourism, Integrated Conservation and Development, Outdoor Recreation and Nature Based-Tourism, Human-Wildlife Conflicts and Management, Parks, and Protected Area Planning and Management in East Africa
Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, African Studies, and History
(814) 865-8697
Area(s) of Specialization: African sport history, Anti-apartheid and anti-colonial transnational activism, Social and political histories of South Africa and Kenya
Assistant Teaching Professor of African Studies
Area(s) of Specialization: African screen media, African language pedagogy, Indigenous science and technology in Africa, Medical humanities, African Traditional Religion, African feminism, Visual arts and cinema, Literary arts, Diaspora studies
Associate Professor of African Studies and English
(814) 865-8425
Area(s) of Specialization: African Literature, African Diaspora Literature, Post-Colonial Theory, Aesthetics, Transnational Studies, Gender, Social and Cultural Movements in Brazil
Assistant Professor of History and African Studies
Catherine Shultz Rein Early Career Professor
(814) 865-1367
Area(s) of Specialization: Sudan and South Sudan, Christianity, Race
Emeritus Faculty
Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus
Area(s) of Specialization: African, African Diaspora, and Oceanic art
Professor Emerita of Art, Art Education, Integrative Arts, and African Studies
Area(s) of Specialization: African and African American Art History and the Development and Assessment of Arts and Integrative Arts Curricula, and Community Based Arts Programs. Art Studio specializations include: Drawing, Painting, Mixed Media, Fashion Design, and Jewelry.
Affiliate Faculty
Professor of Spanish and African Studies
Area(s) of Specialization: 20th- and 21st-century Contemporary Spanish Fiction and Culture; Afro-Hispanic Literature and Cultures.
Assistant Professor of African American Studies, English, and African Studies
(814) 863-2343
Area(s) of Specialization: Rhetoric of Application Forms; Funding Infrastructures, Biography, Transnational American Studies in the Middle East and Africa, African Diaspora Studies/African Studies
Associate Professor of Lifelong Learning and Adult Education and African Studies
Area(s) of Specialization: Comparative and International Education, Adult, online and distance education, Power dynamics in negotiation, uBuntu and Cosmo-uBuntu as (exterior to modernity) theorizing, Global justice and de-colonializing, de-bordering, de-peripherizing, and de-centering the world, African renaissance, and, International development
Associate Professor of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies, African Studies, and History
(814) 867-3561
Area(s) of Specialization: Gender and militarism, War and political violence, Ugandan postcolonial history, African women’s history, Global feminisms
Liberal Arts Professor of Sociology, Demography, and African Studies
(814) 863-2240
Area(s) of Specialization: Research capacity building in Sub-Saharan Africa; Demographic and health outcomes associated with urban poverty; Intergenerational transfer of norms governing the gendered stratification of sexuality; The male role and the intersection of gender and power on fertility decision making; and Africans and other black immigrants in the United States.
Joyce and Doug Sherwin Early Career Professor in the Rock Ethics Institute and Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies
(814) 865-2937
Area(s) of Specialization: Human-environment interaction, anthropology and archaeology of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, coastal and island archaeology, ethnohistory, ethnoarchaeology, historical ecology, extinction, migration, ethnogenesis
Assistant Professor of History, African American Studies, and African Studies
(814) 865-8719
Area(s) of Specialization: African diaspora, Migration and Immigration, Race and Ethnicity
Professor of International Affairs and African Studies
(814) 867-2793
Area(s) of Specialization: Determinants of economic growth, Institutions and economic growth, Deep roots of economic development, Development economics, The economics of art, Formal methods of modelling social science relationships
PROFESSOR, ELEANOR R. STUCKEMAN CHAIR IN DESIGN
(814) 863-5337
Area(s) of Specialization: Biodiversity Conservation, Cultural Ecology, East Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia
Professor of Forest Resources
Chair of Forest Ecosystem Management Program
Extension Specialist
(814) 865-3994
Area(s) of Specialization: Water energy food nexus, Bioenergy, Sustainable forestry, Forest economics, finance, policy and taxes, Agroforestry and non timber forest products, Gas taxation, forest certification and incentive programs, Private forestry, International forestry, Liberi
Professor of Meteorology
(814) 865-0479
Area(s) of Specialization: Atmospheric/Air chemistry, Climate, Tropical meteorology
Professor, Weiss Chair of the Humanities in Literature and Human Rights
(814) 865-1188
Area(s) of Specialization: Sub-Saharan African literatures, narratives of violence and reconciliation, the interface between the critical medical humanities and sub-Saharan African health frameworks, the integration of gender-based violence prevention and treatment into HIV/AIDS pr
Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies
(814) 865-1492
Area(s) of Specialization: Visual Arts and cinema, Literature, Francophone African Theater and Art performance, Race, Migration / Immigration in French West Indies and Sub-Saharan Africa, Slave-Trade and its Memories in Arts, African Diaspora, Trauma Studies
Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African Studies
(814) 867-4269
Area(s) of Specialization: Comparative Literature, Literary Criticism, African Diaspora Studies, Transnational Feminism, African Feminism, Comparative Racialization, Religious Studies, Immigration Studies, African and African Diaspora Women’s Literature in English, French, Arabic, and Spanish, Religions of Africa and the African Diaspora, Islamic Africa, Race and the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade, Immigration, Race, Gender, and Belonging
Associate Professor of International Affairs and African Studies
(814) 867-2979
Area(s) of Specialization: Environmental and Natural Resource Economics (Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation), Institutional Change and Development in Africa, Political Economy with a focus on resource-rich countries
Assistant Professor of Telecommunications and African Studies
(814) 865-3717
Area(s) of Specialization: Comparative and Global African, Middle Eastern, and Saharan Media (including Systems, Ethics, Practices, Uses, Reception, Effects and Contexts), Peace Communication and Social Change, Children and Ethnopolitical Conflict, Ethnography of Violence, Public O
Associate Professor of Youth and International Development
Director of the 2iE-Penn State Centre for Collaborative Engagement in Burkina Faso, West Africa
Area(s) of Specialization: Youth development, civic enhancement and international community development
Professor of African American Studies, History, and African Studies
(814) 865-6873
Area(s) of Specialization: African American and African Diaspora History and Culture
Professor of Education, Literature and Literacies, and African Studies
(814) 863-8921
Area(s) of Specialization: Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Literacies; West African and African Diaspora Youth texts; Power issues in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Graduate Students
Dual PhD candidate in French and Francophone Studies and African Studies
Recent Graduates
Staff
