ACAS Board of Directors and Advisory Council
Board of Directors, 2013-2014
Ousseina Alidou
Ousseina Alidou is currently the Director of African Languages and Literature in the Department of Africana Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Horace Campbell
Professor of African American Studies and Political Science, Syracuse University in Syracuse New York
Imani Countess
Zimbabwe country director for National Democratic Institute. Previously, she has provided leadership to the Africa solidarity movement as a staff member of the American Friends Service Committee, Washington Office on Africa, and TransAfrica Forum.
Jennifer Davis
Jennifer Davis, born in South Africa and an economist by training, was a key figure in the US anti-apartheid movement. She served as Executive Director of the American Committee on Africa and as editor of Southern Africa magazine. Since leaving ACOA in 2000, she consults on international issues and has served on the Board of The Washington Office on Africa and the Advisory Committee of the African Activist Archive Project at Michigan State University. Davis received the Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo in 2009.
Gerald Horne
John and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.
William Martin
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
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.
Catharine Newberry
Emeritus Professor of Government at Smith College, and Five College Professor of Government and African Studies.
Prexy Nesbitt
Activist 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.
Christine Root
Grant Writer and Project Director, Michigan State University. She has served as Political Action Co-Chair of ACAS and currently is Project Manager of the African Activist Archive Project.
Joel Samoff
Professor of African Studies and Political Science, 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. Schmidt has served on the Board of the African Studies Association.
Carol Thompson
Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Northern Arizona University. Her work investigates the political economy of food sovereignty in Southern Africa, including questions of biopiracy versus farmers’ rights. She has served on the Board of the African Studies Association, as Editor of the African Studies Review, and as annual ASA conference Program Chair. She has served as Co-Chair of ACAS.
Judith van Allen, Senior Fellow at the Institute for African Development Cornell University, and a long-time activist-scholar. She is currently working on a book on the history of the Botswana women’s organization, Emang Basadi, as co-author with Athaliah Molokomme. She was a founding member of the African Studies Association’s Women’s Caucus and is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the African Studies Review. Her current research focuses on the problematics of using women’s rights discourses to address gender violence and women’s poverty in Southern Africa.
David Wiley
Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. Wiley was Director of the MSU African Studies Center for 30 years and is a former President of the African Studies Association. He is one of the founders of ACAS at MSU in 1977 and has served as ACAS Co-chair.
Emira Woods
Emira Woods is co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. She is an expert on U.S. foreign policy with a special emphasis on Africa and the developing world.
Advisory Council
Merle Bowen
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
Frank Holmquist
Professor Emeritus, Politics, Hampshire College
Al Kagan
Professor of Library Administration and Africana Bibliographer, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
William Minter
Editor AfricaFocus and former Senior Research Fellow, Africa Action
Ann Seidman
Adjunct Professor, School of Law, Boston University
Immanuel Wallerstein
Senior Research Scholar, Sociology Department, Yale University
*Affiliation for identification purposes only
