Africanist Faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill
This page contains an alphabetical listing of faculty members at UNC-Chapel Hill who have research or teaching interests in Africa. In addition to this resource, the Center for Global Initiatives maintains the International Faculty Expertise Database, which allows users to search by various criteria to find faculty members with particular specializations.
Sahar Amer
samer@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, Asian Studies; Instructor, Medieval Studies
Specialization: Cross-cultural relations between Arabs and Europe, Muslims and Christians throughout history; North Africa; Arabs and Muslims in France today; cross-cultural constructions of gender.
Relevant Courses Taught: Beginning through advanced Arabic; Arabic Literature
Barbara Anderson
b_anderson@unc.eduAssociate Director, African Studies Center; Lecturer, African and Afro-American Studies
Specialization: Reflective practice; adult and continuing professional education; educational consulting in African and African American Studies; managed grants from UCIS, CIT, NCHS, and NEH for course development and outreach programs.
Relevant Courses Taught: AFRI 101 (Introduction to African Civilization); online Introduction to African Civilization
Martine Antle
mcantle@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, Romance Languages
Specialization: Twentieth-Century French Studies, African Francophone literature, postmodernism and cultural studies
Relevant Courses Taught: Intermediate & Advanced French Conversation, Survey of French Literature, Advanced Composition, Francophone Studies, Studies in French & Francophone Drama, Francophone African Literature Cultural Diversity in France Today, Identities in French & Francophone Contexts.
Tomeiko Ashford
tashford@email.unc.eduAssociate Director, Institute of African American Research
Relevant Experience: ASC Advisory Board member
Idris Assani
assani@email.unc.eduProfessor, Mathematics
Specialization: Ergodic theory- probability theory.
Oscar Barbarin
barbarin@email.unc.eduProfessor, School of Social Work
Specialization: Psychology, child development, culture & mental health, early childhood education.
Relevant Experience: Quantitative research in Africa, health and mental health of children and adolescents
Wilfrida Behets
Frieda_Behets@unc.eduAssociate Professor, Epidemiology, School of Public Health
Specialization: Sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS.
Relevant Courses Taught: EPID 757 (Epidemiology and Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS in Developing Countries)
Trude Bennett
trude_bennett@unc.eduAssociate Professor, Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health
Specialization: Global reproductive health and health policy, monitoring of maternal morbidity and women’s health, impact of globalization on reproductive health.
Relevant Courses Taught: EPID 690 (Section: Global Health Ethics Seminar); HPAA 496 (Section: Critical Global Health Issues)
Margaret Bentley
pbentley@unc.eduProfessor and Associate Dean for Global Health, School of Public Health
Specialization: Maternal and child nutrition; HIV prevention; HIV and breastfeeding; women’s health, reproductive health.
Relevant Courses Taught: PUBH 140 (Perspectives in Global Health)
Judith Blau
judith_blau@unc.eduProfessor, Sociology
Specialization: Justice studies, human rights, education, sociology of aesthetics, critical race theory.
Relevant Courses Taught: SOCI 111 (Human Societies)
Shelah Bloom
ssbloom@email.unc.eduResearch Assistant Professor, Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health
Specialization: Reproductive health and HIV/AIDS in developing countries.
Karen Booth
kmbooth@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, Women’s Studies
Specialization: Gender, sexuality and issues related to imperialism, globalization and underdevelopment in the Third World; transnational feminisms; transnational queer politics; HIV/AIDS; reproductive health
Relevant Courses Taught: WMST 293 (Gender and Imperialism); WMST/INTS 281 (Gender and Global Change); WMST/INTS 388 (The International Politics of Sexual and Reproductive Health).
Kenneth Broun
ksbroun@email.unc.eduHenry Brandis Professor, School of Law
Specialization: Civil procedure, evidence, professional responsibility, and trial advocacy.
Raquel Von Cogell
raquel.cogell@unc.eduLibrarian for African and African American Studies, Academic Affairs Library
Specialization: Reference and research services, collections development at the library of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. ASC Advisory Board member.
Myron Cohen
myron_cohen@med.unc.eduJ. Herbert Bate Professor of Medicine, Chief Director of Microbiology & Immunology, UNC Center for Infectious Diseases
Specialization: Infectious diseases. ASC Advisory Board member.
Patrick Conway
patrick_conway@unc.eduProfessor, Economics
Specialization: Problems of developing and transition countries, economic development, international trade and finance, and econometrics.
Relevant Courses Taught: ECON 360 (Survey of International and Development Economics)
Amy Cooke
acooke@email.unc.eduVisiting Lecturer, African and Afro-American Studies
Specialization: Ecology Studies.
Relevant Courses Taught: AFRI 101 (Introduction to African Civilizations)
Alan Cross
Across@unc.eduProfessor, Social Medicine
Specialization: Assessing the effectiveness of community-based interventions to improve infant health, testing methods for improving adolescent health through school and community interventions, improving the delivery of preventive services to low income populations and exploring the dimensions of medical ethics in the doctor patient relationship.
Relevant Courses Taught: Co-director of the first year Medicine and Society course and of the second year Selectives in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Robert Daniels
robert_daniels@unc.eduDistinguished Associate Professor, Anthropology
Specialization: Cultural anthropology, social systems, kinship, ethnicity in Africa, cross-cultural studies.
Relevant Courses Taught: Field course developed in Kenya; ANTH 57 (First Year Seminar: Today in Africa); ANTH 226 (Peoples of Africa)
Patricia Dominguez
patricia@email.unc.eduHumanities Bibliographer, Academic Affairs Library
Specialization: Comparative literature.
Roberta Ann Dunbar
radunbar@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, African and Afro-American Studies
Specialization: African social history; women and development in Africa; Muslim women in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially with regard to law and politics; international studies, public education in relation to African affairs
Relevant Courses Taught: AFRI 261 (African Women: Changing Ideals and Realities); AFRI 262 (The Literature of Africa); AFRI 264 (African Art and Culture); AFRI 430 (Comparative Studies in Culture, Gender and Global Forces); AFRI 522 (West Africa: Society and Economy in the Twentieth Century); AFRI 691H/692H (Honors).
Dominique Fisher
domfisc@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, Romance Languages
Specialization: Nineteenth-century poetry, literary and cultural theory.
Nasser Isleem
nmisleem@email.unc.eduLecturer, Asian Studies
Specialization: English Literature, education management, teaching Arabic for non-Arabic speakers; translation of books, articles and documents.
Relevant Courses Taught: Elementary, intermediate and conversational Arabic
Joseph Jordan
jfjordan@email.unc.eduDirector of the Sonya H. Stone Center for Black Culture and History; Associate Professor, African and Afro-American Studies
Specialization: African Diaspora in the Americas; black radical studies; African-American Studies (cultural politics) African Studies (politics of development); African Diaspora in the Americas; Diaspora art and cultural politics; Pan-Africanism in the Diaspora.
Jay Kaufman
jay_kaufman@unc.eduAssociate Professor, Epidemiology, School of Public Health
Specialization: Epidemiologic methods, health services research, minority health and health disparities, reproductive health, cardiovascular disease.
Relevant Experience: Nigeria, chronic disease burden in the developing world
Thomas Kelley
takelley@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, School of Law; Community Development Law Clinic
Specialization: African customary law and legal anthropology, the law of emerging nations, the law of non-profit organizations and philanthropy.
Michael Lambert
mlambert@email.unc.eduDirector, African Studies Center; Associate Professor, African and Afro-American Studies; Adjunct Associate Professor, Anthropology
Specialization: Political anthropology, warfare, nationalism, migration, urbanization.
Relevant Courses Taught: AFRI 101 (Introduction to African Civilization); AFRI 368 (Political Protest and Conflict in Africa); AFRI 395 (Field Research Methods in African Studies); AFRI 480 (Ethnography of Africa); AFRI 522 (West Africa: Society and Economy in the Twentieth Century).
Christopher Lee
cjlee@email.unc.eduAssistant Professor, History
Specialization: Modern Southern Africa.
Relevant Courses Taught: Honors Seminar in Third World History; Modern South Africa; African Intellectual History.
Paul Leslie
pwleslie@unc.eduProfessor and Chair, Anthropology; Curriculum in Ecology
Specialization: Human ecology; demography; pastoralism.
Lisa Lindsay
lalindsa@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, History
Specialization: Social history of Colonial Africa; the African Diaspora; Nigeria.
Relevant Courses Taught: HIST 130 (Africa in the Twentieth Century: Transformations in Culture and Power); HIST 278 (The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade); HIST 534 (The African Diaspora); HIST 393 (Section: Africa Since 1940).
Soyini Madison
dmadison@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, Communication Studies
Specialization: Myth and popular culture, performance ethnography, performance of literature for social change, and the political economy of performance.
Scott Madry
madrys@email.unc.eduResearch Associate Professor, Anthropology
Specialization: Applications of Geomatics (remote sensing, GIS, GPS, and spatial analysis) for regional cultural and environmental studies. Archaeological predictive modeling, regional environmental analysis, gorilla habitat research.
Carol Magee
cmagee@email.unc.eduAssistant Professor, Art
Specialization: History of contemporary and traditional African art; How Americans come to know and understand Africa through US culture (museums, artists, media, toys, etc); African photography.
Relevant Courses Taught: African Art Survey (Art 155); African Art and Culture (Art 255); African Masquerades and Ritual (Art 353); Contemporary African Art (Art 488); Africa in the American Imagination (Art 453); Graduate Seminar in African Art (Art 957).
Dale McKinley
drdalet@metroweb.co.zaAdjunct Associate Professor, African and Afro-American Studies
Specialization: National liberation strategies and tactics of the African National Congress; United States foreign policy with South Africa; Effects of globalization and privatization Sub-Saharan Africa.
Relevant Courses Taught: AFRI 265 (Africa in the Global System; online; taught from South Africa)
Timothy Mcmillan
tjm1@email.unc.eduAdjunct Assistant Professor, African and Afro-American Studies
Specialization: Afro-American History; East Africa; Haiti.
Relevant Courses Taught: AFRI 101 (Introduction to African Civilization); AFRI 263 (African Belief Systems: Religion and Philosophy in Sub-Saharan Africa)
Steven Meshnick
meshnick@email.unc.eduProfessor, Epidemiology, School of Public Health
Specialization: Malaria, Mother-to-child transmission of HIV, AIDS-associated opportunistic infections.
Relevant Courses Taught: EPID 756 (Control of Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries)
Margaret Miles
mmiles@email.unc.eduResearch Professor, School of Nursing
Specialization: African American women with HIV; health disparity research; Parents of infants and children with serious health problems; mothers with preterm infants; response to disaster.
Alphonse Mutima
smutima@email.unc.eduAdjunct Assistant Professor; African and Afro-American Studies
Specialization: African language instruction; roles of African intellectuals in central African politics.
Relevant Courses Taught: Elementary-advanced Swahili and Lingala
Julius Nyang’oro
jen321@email.unc.eduProfessor and Chair, African and Afro-American Studies
Specialization: Comparative international political economy.
Barry Popkin
popkin@unc.eduProfessor, Nutrition, School of Public Health
Specialization: Human resource economics, epidemiology of nutrition, nutrition transition, trends in dietary intake, physical activity and body composition around the world.
Monica Rector
rector@email.unc.eduProfessor, Romance Languages
Specialization: Luso-Brazilian literature, language and culture, female writers, semiotics and non-verbal communication, Brazil, Portugal; Lusophone African Literature.
Peter Redfield
redfield@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, Anthropology
Specialization: Science, technology and society; colonial history and postcolonial relations; transnational expertise, Europe, French Guiana, Uganda.
Relevant Courses Taught: ANTH 280 (Anthropology of War and Peace); ANTH 322 (Anthropology and Human Rights)
Andrew Reynolds
asreynol@email.unc.eduAssociate Professor, Political Science
Specialization: Democratic design, ethnic conflict, plural societies, Africa.
Relevant Courses Taught: POLI 067 (First Year Seminar: Designing Democracy); POLI 131 (Political Change and Modernization); POLI 437 (African Politics and Society)
Paul Roberge
ptr@email.unc.eduProfessor, Germanic Languages; Linguistics
Specialization: Historical linguistics; pidgin and creole languages; language and society; Germanic languages; Afrikaans.
Relevant Courses Taught: GERM 252 (South Africa in Literary Perspective)
Richard Rosen
rich_rosen@unc.eduProfessor and Senior Associate Dean, School of Law
Specialization: Criminal law.
John Rutledge
jbr@email.unc.eduBibliographer, Academic Affairs Library
Relevant Africa Focus: Chief selector for library material published in the Mahgreb and in the Middle East; approval program with the Library of Congress, which brings in books in Arabic.
Eunice Sahle
eunice@email.unc.eduAssistant Professor, African and Afro-American Studies and International Studies
Specialization: International political economy, international relations.
Relevant Courses Taught: AFRI 101 (Introduction to African Civilization); AFRI 375 (Politics of Cultural Production in Africa); AFRI 416 (Human Rights and Social Justice Movements in Africa ); INTS 210 (Global Issues in the Twentieth Century)
Bereket Selassie
bselassi@email.unc.eduWilliam E. Luchtenburg Professor of African Studies and Professor of Law
Specialization: African law, politics, and history; law and development, constitutional law, politics of development, international law of human rights.
Jennifer S. Smith
jsssmith@email.unc.eduResearch Assistant Professor, Epidemiology, School of Public Health
Specialization: Infectious disease and reproductive health epidemiology.
John Stewart
jfstewar@email.unc.eduProfessor, Economics
Specialization: Industrial organization, health economics, industrial organization and antitrust, health issues in less developed countries.
Ronald Strauss
ron_strauss@unc.eduDistinguished Professor and Chair, Dental Ecology; Social Medicine
Relevant Experience: Malawi, Foci on social research related to stigma, social responses to disease, craniofacial conditions and HIV/AIDS.
Chirayath Suchindran
suchindran@unc.eduProfessor, Dept. of Biostatistics, School of Public Health
Specialization: Statistical demography, family planning evaluation, methodological research.
Luke Swindler
luke_swindler@unc.eduLibrarian/Social Science Bibliographer, Academics Affairs Library
Specialization: History, librarianship, publishing.
James Thomas
jim_thomas@unc.eduAssociate Professor, Epidemiology, School of Public Health
Specialization: Social epidemiology, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, public health ethics.
Relevant Courses Taught: Infection and Inequality; Social Epidemiology: Concepts and Measures; Foundations of Public Health Ethics
Annelies Van Rie
vanrie@email.unc.eduAssistant Professor, Epidemiology, School of Public Health
Specialization: International health, tuberculosis, HIV, pediatric HIV care.
Judith Welch Wegner
judith_wegner@unc.eduProfessor, School of Law
Specialization: Law; higher education.
Relevant Experience: Worked to create linkage program with University of Asmara, Eritrea
Dale Whittington
dale_whittington@unc.eduProfessor, Environmental Sciences & Engineering, School of Public Health; City and Regional Planning; Public Policy
Specialization: Water and sanitation planning in developing countries; environmental policy.
Nadia Yaqub
yaqub@email.unc.eduAssistant Professor, Asian Studies; Arabic
Specialization: Oral Arabic poetry; modern Arabic literature; classical Arabic literature; Arabic linguistics.
Relevant Courses Taught: Elementary Arabic through advanced Arabic; Introduction to Arabic Culture; Modern Arabic Literature in Translation; Advanced Readings in Arabic
