ACAS Board

Ousseina Alidou
Ousseina Alidou is currently the Director of African Languages and Literature in the Department of Africana Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Merle Bowen
Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign.

Horace Campbell
Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University in Syracuse New York.

Imani Countess
Africa Program Coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee

Jennifer Davis
Jennifer Davis, born in South Africa and an economist by training, was a key figure in the US anti-apartheid movement. As executive director of the American Committee on Africa she was at the forefront of the campaign to divest from companies investing in apartheid South Africa that ultimately led to Congressional sanctions against South Africa. She also served as editor of Southern Africa magazine. Since leaving ACOA in 2000 she consults on international issues and serves on the boards of The Washington Office on Africa and the Advisory Committee of the African Activist Archive Project of the African Studies Center at Michigan State University.

Asma Abdel Halim
Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Toledo.

Frank Holmquist
Professor of Politics in the School of Social Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA. He has written on the political opening in Kenya and has taught at universities in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Gerald Horne
John and Rebecca Moores Professor of History at the University of Houston.

Al Kagan
Professor of Library Administration and the African Studies Bibliographer at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign. He is active in the Africana Librarians Council of the African Studies Association. He serves on the Council of the American Library Association representing its Social Responsibilities Round Table, and he works on the Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. His publications include the second edition of Reference Guide to Africa: A Bibliography of Sources (Scarecrow, 2005).

Sidney Lemelle
Professor of History and Black Studies and Chair of the History Department at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

William Martin
A past co-chair of ACAS, is a professor of sociology at Binghamton University, where he teaches courses on global social movements and the capitalist world-economy.  He is a past co-chair of ACAS, and is a coordinator of the Binghamton Justice Project

Bill Minter
Editor of AfricaFocus Bulletin, taught at the secondary school of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) in 1966-68 and 1974-76. He has worked as an independent scholar and activist since receiving his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in 1973.

James Mittelman
Professor of International Relations in the School of International Service at American University, Washington, DC. He has worked in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. His books include The Globalization Syndrome: Transformation and Resistance (Princeton University Press), and current research focuses on globalization and security.

Prexy Nesbitt
Pactivist and educator whose work over the past four decades has been connecting freedom-loving peoples in Africa, Europe and North America to each other, to strengthening progressive political and social movements on both continents.

Joel Samoff
Center for African Studies, Stanford University. Courses on contested transitions in South Africa and the political economy of education, especially the intersection of global and local dynamics in public policy. Recent research focused on the politics of aid to education, including the role of research. Works regularly with international agencies involved in education in Africa.

Elizabeth Schmidt
Professor of history at Loyola College in Maryland, her work has focused on women in colonial Zimbabwe and grassroots mobilization in the nationalist movement in Guinea.  Her interest in Africa was sparked by the anti-apartheid movement in the 1970s. She serves on the Board of the African Studies Association.

Ann Seidman
Ann Seidman has conducted research and taught in universities for many years, in both the developed world and emerging nations. She was Chair of the Economics Departments of the Universities of Zambia and Zimbabwe and has served as President of the African Studies Association (US). In recent years, she has worked to explore the use of law to facilitate sustainable development. Currently, she is co-director of the Boston University School of Law Program on Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social Change.

Meredeth Turshen
Professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University. Her newest book is, Women’s Health Movements: A Global Force for Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). She has served as Co-Chair of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, as Treasurer of the Committee for Health in Southern Africa, and is still a contributing editor of the Review of African Political Economy.

Daniel Volman
Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, D.C.

Immanuel Wallerstein
Senior Research Scholar at Yale and Director emeritus of the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University. He was president of the African Studies Association and the International Sociological Association. He is the author of The Modern World-System and of Africa: The Politics of Independence and Unity.

David Wiley
Professor of Sociology and Director of the African Studies at Michigan State University. He is one of the founders of ACAS at MSU in 1977 and has served as ACAS co-chair.  He worked in race relations in Rhodesia and in the anti-apartheid movement.  His research in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, and South Africa has concerned urban housing, inequality, and religion, and. currently, environment and social movements in South Africa.

Noah Zerbe
Assistant professor of Government and Politics at Humboldt State University in northern California. His current research focuses on the intersection agricultural biotechnology and rural development in Southern Africa.

*Affiliation for identification purposes only