Africa Today Journal

Nana Amoah-Ramey

Dr. Nana Amoah-Ramey is an Africanist, Diasporan cum Ethno-musicologist scholar of African American and African Diaspora Studies. Amoah-Ramey's works focus on Black women globally with a particular interest in Black females' existing realism, liberation, music compositions, verbal orders, and language. Publications include Female Highlife Performers in Ghana: Expression, Resistance, and Advocacy (2018), as well as numerous articles and book chapters.

Sergio Fernandez

Sergio Fernandez is an associate professor at Indiana University and an expert in the fields of public management and organization theory, with a focus on employee empowerment, representative bureaucracy in the U.S. and South Africa, organizational change and innovation, public sector leadership, and government outsourcing.

Maria Grosz-Ngaté

Maria Grosz-Ngaté is a research scientist in African Studies at Indiana University. Her areas of interest include political economy with a focus on social transformation and migration; Muslim communities in Senegal and Mali; and knowledge production in and on Africa. Her publications include Gendered Encounters and Africa, Fourth Edition.

Asher Lubotzky

Asher Lubotzky is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Indiana University. His Ph.D. dissertation explores the early relationship between the State of Israel and Southern Africa (1948-1976) as well as different South African interpretations of Zionism. Asher is the recipient of the Gerda Henkel Ph.D. Scholarship for 2021-2023.

Lauren M. MacLean

Lauren M. MacLean is the Arthur F. Bentley Chair and professor of Political Science at Indiana University. Her research focuses on the political economy of state formation, public service provision, and democratic citizenship in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, and Kenya. Her current project as a Carnegie Fellow focuses on the energy sector and climate change.

Allison Martino

Allison Martino is the Laura and Raymond Wielgus Curator of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and Indigenous Art of the Americas at the Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University. She is also an Affiliate Faculty in the IU African Studies Program. Her research focuses on arts and visual culture in Africa, especially textiles, photography, and contemporary arts.

Beth Lewis Samuelson

Dr. Beth L. Samuelson is Associate Professor of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education, with decades of work focused in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. She is the author of numerous articles, studies, and book chapters, including most recently “Empathetic Communication: Bridging Differences in a Global Context,” coauthored with E. Alant and L. Ogle, in Cross-cultural Global Perspective on Individuals with Special Needs: Traversing abilities and challenges.

Kevin Taber

Kevin Taber recently earned his PhD in political science from Indiana University and will be joining the faculty of Purdue University as a Visiting Assistant Professor for the academic year.  His research focuses on contemporary African migration and diaspora communities and their impact on development, governance, and human security in their places of origin, as well as the implications these dynamics have for Global North-South relations.

Esi Thompson

Esi Thompson is an Assistant Professor with the Media School at Indiana University. Her research focuses on health risk and crisis communication primarily in West Africa (Ghana and Liberia) and more recently in the US. Her current project addresses risk perceptions and misinformation surrounding Covid-19.

Hilary Warner-Evans

Hilary Warner-Evans, is the managing editor of Africa Today, is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of folklore and ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Her research focuses primarily on folk songs in Northeastern North America, particularly as it relates to concepts of sense of place, tradition, and identity.