Directory

  1. Program Head
  2. Core Faculty
  3. Affiliate Faculty
  4. Graduate Students
  5. Recent Graduates
  6. Staff

Program Head

Cheryl Sterling

  • Program Head, African Studies

Phone: (814) 865-8425

Email: czs796@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: African Literature, African Diaspora Literature, Post-Colonial Theory, Aesthetics, Transnational Studies, Gender, Social and Cultural Movements in Brazil

Core Faculty

Clemente Abrokwaa

  • Associate Teaching Professor of African Studies

Phone: (814) 865-5257

Email: cka1@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Science and technology in Africa, Education in Africa, Globalization, African politics, Multiculturalism, Economic development in Africa, Peace and conflict studies

Gabeba Baderoon

  • Associate Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African Studies

Phone: (814) 865-2372

Email: gxb26@psu.edu

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

Abigail Celis

  • Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies and African Studies

Email: aqc5966@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, Visual arts and cinema, Literary arts, Museums and repatriation, Diaspora studies

Neelima Jeychandran

  • Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate in African Studies and Asian Studies

Email: nuj47@psu.edu

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

Busi Makoni

  • Associate Teaching Professor

Phone: (814) 867-3553

Email: sud17@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Language socialization, Language ideology, Language and law, Language policy and planning, Discourse analysis, Multimodal translanguaging

Sinfree Makoni

  • Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and African Studies

Phone: (814) 863-2431

Email: sbm12@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Language policy and planning, Security studies, Language and health, Southern epistemologies and ontologies

Richard Mbih

  • Assistant Teaching Professor of African Studies

Phone: (814) 865-9496

Email: ram6096@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Agro-pastoralism and food security, environmental change and society, natural resource conflicts, political ecology, sustainability, Sub-Saharan Africa, and international development

Kidane Mengisteab

  • Professor of African Studies and Political Science

Phone: (814) 863-5815

Email: kim3@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Security in the Horn of Africa, Extractive industries and commercial farming in Africa

Abderrahim Ouarghidi

  • Assistant Teaching Professor of African Studies and Anthropology

Email: auo45@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Development and Sustainability, Community-Based Natural Resources and Management, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Agricultural and Pastoral Systems, Participatory Methods

Bronwen Powell

  • Assistant Professor of Geography, African Studies, and Anthropology

Phone: (814) 865-1187

Email: bxp15@psu.edu

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

Michelle Sikes

  • Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, African Studies, and History

Phone: (814) 865-8697

Email: mxs1600@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: African sport history, Anti-apartheid and anti-colonial transnational activism, Social and political histories of South Africa and Kenya

Olusegun Soetan

  • Assistant Teaching Professor of African Studies

Email: oqs5131@psu.edu

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

Christopher Tounsel

  • Assistant Professor of History and African Studies

Phone: (814) 865-1367

Email: cut70@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Sudan and South Sudan, Christianity, Race

Affiliate Faculty

Ebony Coletu

  • Assistant Professor of African American Studies, English, and African Studies

Phone: (814) 863-2343

Email: euc179@psu.edu

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

Alicia Decker

  • Associate Professor of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies and African Studies

Phone: (814) 867-3561

Email: acdecker@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Gender and militarism, War and political violence, Ugandan postcolonial history, African women’s history, Global feminisms

William Dewey

  • Associate Professor of Art History

Email: wjd14@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: African, African Diaspora, and Oceanic art

J. Marlena Edwards

  • Assistant Professor of African American Studies and History

Phone: (814) 865-8719

Email: jue328@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: African diaspora, Migration and Immigration, Race and Ethnicity

Johannes Fedderke

  • Professor of International Affairs and African Studies

Phone: (814) 867-2793

Email: jwf15@psu.edu

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

Larry Gorenflo

  • PROFESSOR, ELEANOR R. STUCKEMAN CHAIR IN DESIGN

Phone: (814) 863-5337

Email: lgorenflo@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Biodiversity Conservation, Cultural Ecology, East Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia

Ephraim Govere

  • Director, Soil Research Cluster Lab and Lecturer in African Studies

Phone: (814) 865-1143

Email: emg900@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: The role of professionals in developing countries, Analytical laboratory capacity building and development of novel environmental methods of analysis

Michael Jacobson

  • Professor of Forest Resources
  • Chair of Forest Ecosystem Management Program
  • Extension Specialist

Phone: (814) 865-3994

Email: mgj2@psu.edu

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

Gregory Jenkins

  • Professor of Meteorology

Phone: (814) 865-0479

Email: gsj1@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Atmospheric/Air chemistry, Climate, Tropical meteorology

RoseMary Jolly

  • Professor, Weiss Chair of the Humanities in Literature and Human Rights

Phone: (814) 865-1188

Email: rjj14@psu.edu

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

Fabienne Kanor

  • Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies

Phone: (814) 865-1492

Email: quk165@psu.edu

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

Maha Marouan

  • Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African Studies

Phone: (814) 867-4269

Email: mzm24@psu.edu

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

Mare Sarr

  • Associate Professor of International Affairs and African Studies

Phone: (814) 867-2979

Email: mxs2566@psu.edu

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

Yael Warshel

  • Assistant Professor of Telecommunications and African Studies

Phone: (814) 865-3717

Email: yzw5370@psu.edu

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

Nicole Sheree Webster

  • Associate Professor of Youth and International Development
  • Director of the 2iE-Penn State Centre for Collaborative Engagement in Burkina Faso, West Africa

Email: nsw10@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: Youth development, civic enhancement and international community development

Michael West

  • Professor of African American Studies, History, and African Studies

Phone: (814) 865-6873

Email: mow5397@psu.edu

Area(s) of Specialization: African American and African Diaspora History and Culture

Graduate Students

Tembi Charles

  • Dual PhD candidate in Comparative Literature and African Studies

Email: txc372@psu.edu

Michael Derek Gideon

  • Dual PhD candidate in Comparative Literature and African Studies

Email: mdg28@psu.edu

Irene Momanyi

  • Dual PhD candidate in French and African Studies

Email: ikm10@psu.edu

Vieux Toure

  • Dual PhD candidate in French and Francophone Studies and African Studies

Email: vzt5067@psu.edu

Recent Graduates

Alexander Fyfe

  • Dual PhD candidate in Comparative Literature and African Studies

Email: acf198@psu.edu

Staff

Jackie Cauley

  • Administrative Support Coordinator

Phone: (814) 863-1173

Email: jmc671@psu.edu

Daphney Chancy

  • Administrative Support Assistant

Email: dfc21@psu.edu

Melissa Hummel

  • Administrative Coordinator

Phone: (814) 867-2760

Email: mjc7030@psu.edu

Ashley Scott

  • Administrative Support Assistant

Phone: (814) 865-5406

Email: ams87@psu.edu

Johey Verfaille

  • Events Coordinator

Phone: (814) 867-4561

Email: juv12@psu.edu

Jamie Whitehead

  • Undergraduate and Graduate Staff Assistant

Phone: (814) 865-5406

Email: jle1@psu.edu