Senegal

Leonardo Arriola

Director, Associate Dean, Professor of Political Science
Political Science
Center for African Studies
College of Letters and Sciences

Leonardo Arriola studies ethnic politics, party systems, and political economy in Africa. His current research focuses on the formation of multiethnic electoral coalitions among opposition parties in Africa. He has conducted field research in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Senegal. He has previously been a Fulbright scholar at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies at Addis Ababa University, a visiting researcher at the West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal, and a predoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He earned a...

Martha Saavedra

Associate Director
Center for African Studies

Martha Saavedra has been with the Center for African Studies since 1993. She received a PhD and MA in a Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in International Studies from Rhodes College. She has taught at St. Mary’s College of California, Ohio University, the...

Paola Bacchetta

Professor
Gender & Women's Studies

Cynthia Rahman

Geist Undergraduate Fellow, Best Undergrad Thesis in African Studies
Global Studies

Michelle Reddy

Program Director and Assistant Adjunct Professor, Master of Development Practice
Goldman School of Public Policy

Michelle Reddy is a political sociologist with interest in international development and organizations. Her recent work has largely focused on social mobilization during crises: Ebola, COVID-19, and the European migration crisis. A second, related line of work focuses on the expansion and professionalization of education nonprofits in developing countries. In 2022 she was...

David Villani

Undergraduate in French
French

Recipient of a Summer 2023 FLAS in Arabic

Jean Paul Bourdier

Professor
Architecture

Professor Bourdier is the co-author of African Spaces and Drawn from African Dwellings. Production designer and co-director of seven films directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha. Painting exhibitions and photographs of ephemeral sculptures and body art widely exhibited nationally, winning fourteen national and international competitions. Awards include Guggenheim, American Council of Learned Societies, NEA Graham, UC President's Humanities, and Getty. Practice: see his slides (in Architecture Visual Resources Library). Teaches design studios and seminars on topics ranging from vernacular...