Tag: African Academics in America

Dr. Joyce Tolofari | Trained as an actress in Nigeria, now a trainer of nurses in America

By Ebimo Amungo

Dr. Joyce Tolofari can pass for an a-listed actress in Hollywood or even Nollywood, but she is not an actress, even though she trained to be one. Rather, she is a professor of nursing at the Austin Community College and an adjunct professor of nursing at the University of Texas in Arlington, Texas.

But despite these lofty achievements as a nurse and professor in America, Dr. Tolofari has fond memories of her time as a performer in Nigeria where she studied theater arts under the famed dramatist and academician, Ola Rotimi.

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Famous Ghanaian Economist and author, George Ayittey dead

By MyNewsGH

Ghanaian author, lecturer and top Economist who founded the Free Africa Foundation in the United States, George Ayittey has passed on at the age of 77, MyNewsGh.com reports.

A private funeral was held for him on 8th April 2022 at Everly-Wheately Funeral Home 1500 West Bradock Rd in the United States where he lived for most of his life as an academic.

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Conference on Current Business Issues in African countries ends at Wagner College, New York.

By Ebimo Amungo

A conference on Current Business Issues in African countries has ended in New York. Hosted by Nicolais School of Business at Wagner College, the conference examined the impact of Covid 19 on Supply Chains, Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Entrepreneurship in Africa.

Participants, at the conference, which ran between the 7th and 8th of April, 2022, were drawn from all over Africa, America and the New York Metropolitan area. The conference was held in a hybrid format with both on-campus and online participation.

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Nigerian Professor wins Distinguished Scholar Award in U.S.

By Premium Times

A Nigerian professor, Chris Ogbondah, has won the Distinguished Scholar Award for the 2021-2022 academic year at the University of Northern Iowa in the United States of America. The award is given annually to the lecturer in the university who is most accomplished in scholarly and creative activity.

A letter dated March 11, 2022, which was signed by Gabriela Olivares, Associate Dean, Graduate College of the university, and addressed to Professor Ogbondah said: “The Graduate College is pleased to inform you that the faculty committee for the 2021-2022 Distinguished Scholar Award has selected you as the recipient from a group of excellent nominees.

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Lawrence Udeigwe uses elegant math to understand complex systems of the brain

By Leah Campbell | MIT News

It’s a tale familiar to many first-generation students: Neither of Lawrence Udeigwe’s parents had more than a sixth-grade education, and yet they were willing to sacrifice everything to educate their children.

“My dad,” Udeigwe says, “would tell us, ‘I’m ready to sell everything for you guys to go to school.’”

Udeigwe recounts that in Nigeria at the time, achieving the sort of success and stability his parents hoped for meant studying something practical and working for the government. So, he moved to the United States, enrolled at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and majored in computer science.

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Nigerian-Born Toyin Tofade Becomes First Black Female President Of U.S. College

By Adejayan Gbenga Gsong | Within Nigeria

Nigeria’s Toyin Tofade has been appointed as the first black female president of the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (ACPHS) founded in 1881. According to a press release by the college, Ms Tofade was selected to become the 10th president of the college, following a comprehensive search.

“Dr Tofade is the first Black woman to serve as president of Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in the college’s 141-year history. She begins her term on July 1, 2022,” the release said.

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Chiamaka Agbasi-Porter |Nigerian-American winner of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Awards who is inspiring futures in STEM

By Kylie Foy | MIT Lincoln Laboratory

“My day-to-day is forming relationships,” says Chiamaka Agbasi-Porter, Lincoln Laboratory’s K–12 STEM outreach coordinator. Each July, when Chiamaka Agbasi-Porter welcomes a new group of high school seniors to MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s two-week residential radar program, she starts with a question: Who here is applying to MIT?

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Nigerian-American Adedolapo Adedokun named 2023 Mitchell Scholar by MIT

By MIT News

MIT senior Adedolapo “Dolapo” Adedokun has been named one of 12 winners of the George J. Mitchell Scholarship’s Class of 2023. After completing his degree in electrical engineering and computer science next spring, he will travel to Ireland to undertake a MSc in intelligent systems at Trinity College Dublin as MIT’s fourth student to receive this award.

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There’s no single American hospital without a Nigerian: U.S. Professor

By NAN

There is no single hospital in the United States that does not have a Nigerian in its service, claims a U.S.-based historian and professor of African Studies, Apollos Nwauwa. 

“Apart from Indians, Nigerians are the most consequential immigrants in the U.S. based on the difference they make in many notable ways.

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Professor Fiifi Ofori-Acquah Awarded $3m NIH Grant to Sequence DNA Of Children With Sickle Cell Disease In Ghana

By  Nathaniel Crabbe | YEN

Professor Fiifi Ofori-Acquah has been awarded a $3 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. The UK-trained Ghanaian researcher will use the funds in his research to sequence the whole genome DNA of children with sickle cell disease (SCD) in Ghana.

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Interview with Léonce Ndikumana | The Burundian professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts

by Léonce Ndikumana, C.J. Polychroniou | Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts.


Léonce Ndikumana has served as Director of Operational Policies and Director of Research at the African Development Bank, Chief of Macroeconomic Analysis at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and visiting Professor at the University of Cape Town. He is also an Honorary Professor of economics at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He has contributed to various areas of research and policy analysis on African countries, including the issues of external debt and capital flight, financial markets and growth, macroeconomic policies for growth and employment, and the economics of conflict and civil wars in Africa.

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Charles Rotimi | The NIH epidemiologist who worked to ensure genetic health and population genetics studies contain data from African populations.

By Anna Azvolinsky | The Scientist

Not long after starting a job as the head of a chemistry lab at a high school in Benin City, Nigeria, Charles Rotimi told his parents that he wanted to leave his native country to pursue a graduate degree abroad. He applied to a petrochemical engineering school in the UK and to the University of Mississippi for a health care administration degree, at the advice of a Nigerian friend working there. Rotimi chose the US school because of the cheaper tuition. His mother, who ran her own business, offered Rotimi $10,000, enough for a year in the States. “That was a huge amount of money for my family and a validation that she had confidence and trust in my succeeding,” says Rotimi, now director of the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health at the US National Institutes of Health.  

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Aristide Gumyusenge | Rwandan appointed professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

By Sharon Kantengwa | The New Times

A US-based Rwandan researcher, Aristide Gumyusenge, has been appointed as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the department of materials science, making him the only black faculty member in the department.

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Abraham Waya | Nigerian-born pastor awarded Boston University Best Part Time Faculty Award

By Ebimo Amungo

The University Boston Metropolitan College has awarded the 2021 Roger Deveau Part-Time Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching to Nigerian-born, Dr. Abraham Waya.

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Ato Quayson | The Ghanaian professor appointed to head Stanford University’s Department of English

By Albert Hyde | Ghbase

A Ghanaian author cum professor has been appointed the head of the Department of English at Stanford University. Ato Quayson is currently the Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies and Professor of English at the University.

He is set to assume his new role in September 2021.

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Lost to COVID-19 | Ghanaian-born University of Akron professor hosted international students at his house every Thanksgiving

By Jennifer Pignolet | Akron Beacon Journal

Baffour Takyi knew what it was like to be far from home. The University of Akron professor was from Ghana, and he still had deep roots, including extended family, in the African nation. So every Thanksgiving, he and his wife invited Akron’s international students to their house for a meal. 

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Catherine Nakalembe | How Ugandan Nasa scientist uses satellites to boost farming in Africa

By Patience Atuhaire | BBC

As a keen badminton player Ugandan Catherine Nakalembe wanted to study sport science at university but a failure to get the required grades for a government grant set her on a path that led her to Nasa and winning a prestigious food research prize.

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Kwaku Atuahene-Gima | Ghanaian Professor among 2% of top global scientists in list created by Stanford University

By KOJO EMMANUEL | Pulse Ghana

Ghanaian Professor and President of the Nobel International Business School (NiBS), Professor Kwaku Atuahene-Gima has been listed among the top two percent scientists on the continent. The most coveted and prestigious list of World Ranking of top two percent scientists published on October 16, 2020, featured Professor Atuahene-Gima.

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International expert on African studies to speak to campus

By tova stabin | Around the University of Oregon

Emmanuel Akyeampong, a Harvard expert in African and African American cross-cultural studies, will give a virtual presentation at the University of Oregon on Dec. 1. Akyeampong’s talk, “African and African American Relations, c. 1960 to Recent Times: Transformations in Global Blackness” is part of the African American Workshop and Lecture Series, sponsored by the Office of the President and the Division of Equity and Inclusion. The presentation will be from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

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Chapurukha Kusimba| Academic journey of top Kenyan-American scholar

by Simbi Kusimba

Though a renowned academic with more than 100 publications to his name, anthropological archaeologist Prof Chapurukha Kusimba had humble beginnings. The Kenyan-American was born 58 years ago in Kaptola village, Mt Elgon subcounty, in Bungoma county.

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Lesley Lokko | Scottish-Ghanaian resigns as dean of architecture at New York’s City College

By Eleanor Gibson  | Dezeen

Scottish-Ghanaian architect Lesley Lokko has resigned as dean of the Spitzer School of Architecture at City College in New York, citing a crippling workload and a lack of empathy for black women.

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Hisham Aidi | Moroccan academic dissects the relationship between art and politics

Moroccan academic Hisham Aidi, a professor at Columbia University in the United States, won many prizes for his books, in which he discussed the relationship between art and politics.

By yabiladi.com

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Richard Joseph | A “Nigerian” scholarly luminary from the diaspora

By Biodun Jeyifo | The Nation

This week, Richard Joseph, the John Evans Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University, turned 75. The greetings, salutations and tributes from all over Africa and the world but especially from Nigerian scholars, have been as plentiful as they have been very moving.

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Marius Kothor | Togolese-American scholar in Yale Receives Three National Fellowships for Dissertation Research

By Yale Council for African Studies

Marius Kothor, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History and Council on African Studies (CAS) Graduate Affiliate has been awarded the Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) by the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright IIE award, and the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowship. All three awards offer nine to twelve months of funding to graduate students to conduct dissertation research in whole or in part, outside the United States.

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Adji Bousso Dieng |This AI Expert From Senegal Is Helping Showcase Africans In STEM

By Andrew Wight | Forbes

Not only has Adji Bousso Dieng, an AI researcher from Senegal, contributed to the field of generative modeling and about to become one of the first black female faculty in Computer Science in the Ivy League, she is also helping Africans in STEM tell their own success stories.

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Leonard Wantchekon |Beninese professor leads new effort to propel Black students into top economics Ph.D. programs

By Delaney Parrish | Princeton University

In 2014, Princeton professor Leonard Wantchekon opened the doors to what is now one of the top-ranked economics programs in Africa. Today, the African School of Economics (ASE), with campuses in Benin and Côte d’Ivoire, offers several undergraduate degrees, four master’s degrees, a Ph.D. program and a pre-doctoral program, all aimed at providing “a greater voice to African researchers and entrepreneurs in the debate over the continent’s development.”

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Meet Dr. Menna Demessie: The Ethiopian-American Vice President at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation

Menna Demessie is the Vice President of Policy Analysis and Research at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. She also serves on the advisory board of APSA’s Congressional Fellowship Program. She talks to Political Science Now about how a Political Science PhD prepared her for her new role

By Political Science Now

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Angie Toluhi awarded competitive American Association of Women International Fellowship

by Karen Templeton | UAB News

Angelina “Angie” Aduke Toluhi, MBBS, MPH, a doctoral student in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Public Health, was awarded an American Association of University Women International Fellowship. The physician who championed a number of initiatives to improve the health of mothers and children in her home country, Nigeria, will get $20,000 as part of the fellowship.

The award will help fund her doctoral education at University of Alabama.

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The Fulbright African Research Scholar Program 2020 for postdoctoral Research

Opportunities For Africans

Application Deadline: June 1st 2020

The Fulbright African Research Scholar Program (ARSP) also known as the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program is a research fellowship award grants to foreign academics or professionals to conduct advanced research at U.S. institutions. Two categories of grants are offered under The Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program:  Research Grants and Program and Curriculum Development Grants.

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Harvard names Okonjo-Iweala Global Public Leaders Fellow

By Godsgift Onyedinefu

The John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University has named former Nigerian Finance Minister and World Bank Managing Director the next Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow.

Okonjo-Iweala becomes the fifth fellows since the program’s inception in 2011.

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