Staff
Chair of the Committee on African Studies; Professor of History and Professor of African and African American Studies (FAS)
Caroline Elkins is Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and Chair of Harvard's Committee on African Studies and Committee on Ethnic Studies. She received her A.B., summa cum laude, from Princeton University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her first book, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2006. She is a contributor to the New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, and The New Republic. She and her research have been the subjects of a BBC documentary titled "Kenya: White Terror," which won the International Red Cross Award at the Monte Carlos Film Festival. She has held numerous fellowships and awards including those from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Scholars, Fulbright, the Social Science Research Council, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Carr Center for Human Rights, and the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy.
Director of the African Language Program; Professor of the Practice of African Languages and Cultures (FAS), Director of the Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program
John M. Mugane is the Director of the African Language program in the Department of African and African American Studies. He is a linguist specializing in African languages and is the Professor of the Practice of African Languages and Cultures at Harvard University. Mugane has been the Director of the language program since 2003 developing the teaching of African languages and cultures. Mugane received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Arizona, Tucson (1997) and his M.A. in Linguistics from Ohio University (1991). A graduate of Kenyatta University in Kenya, B.Ed. in Languages, Literature, and Linguistics (1987), he also earned an M.A. in International Affairs, African Studies (1991) at Ohio University. Mugane's current projects include the Africa's Sources of Knowledge Digital Library (ASK-DL) and the Enhanced Language Instruction for African Studies (ELIAS).
Executive Director
Liao’s career has spanned over 25 years at Harvard University, subsequent to attaining an Ed.M. at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. After conducting research and publishing articles in the fields of cognition, language development, and the arts for 14 years, Liao transitioned to administration and management in global health with a focus on Africa. As the former Managing Director of the Harvard AIDS Initiative and the Botswana Harvard Partnership for 11 years, Liao participated in the development of one of Harvard’s first major HIV/AIDS research and training sites in southern Africa. Liao is a member of NCURA, The Foundation Center, and Women in Development/Boston, and has been a volunteer mentor for Training, Inc. and for Children’s Hospital Boston.
Student Programs and Outreach Officer
Having graduating from Bentley University with a double major in Management and Global Perspectives, one of Elise’s favorite courses was “Race in Southern Africa.” After studying abroad in Italy and Chile, she knew that her career path would take her to work in international education. Elise spent two years working at an educational travel company, ACIS, after which she completed her Masters in Higher Education at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She most recently worked in International Advancement at Harvard University’s Development Office and is a Freshman Advisor.
Intern
Caroline is a senior at Harvard College concentrating in Environmental Engineering with a secondary concentration in African Studies. Caroline visited Africa for the first time the summer after her freshman year and has spent at least some time on the continent each summer since, including the entire summer of 2010, when she worked for SAFI Project in Kenya, and NGO started by Harvard Kennedy School professor. On campus, Caroline serves on the COOP Board of Directors, plays club field hockey, and is very involved with her sorority, Delta Gamma. She started working for CAS in the Fall of 2011.
Intern
Sojourner is a senior at Harvard College concentrating in Sociology with a secondary in African Studies. Sojourner spent her junior spring semester studying abroad and learning isiXhosa in Cape Town, South Africa. She later returned to Cape Town in summer of 2011 to conduct interviews for her thesis on the relationship between rape and female political representation in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Sojourner has worked at the Committee on African Studies since summer of 2010.
Program Manager
Shutzer, Class of 2010, comes to the Committee on African Studies by way of Nairobi, Kenya, where she has been working on a traveling museum exhibit on Kenyan history. She is fluent in Swahili, and her undergraduate thesis, “The Politics of Home: Displacement and Resettlement in Postcolonial Kenya” won a Hoopes Prize, as well as the Phillipe Wamba Prize for the best thesis in African Studies. She was also the recipient of the Dudley House “After Harvard Award” and was the founding board member of The School for Ethics and Global Leadership in Washington, DC. Shutzer has traveled extensively in East Africa as well as elsewhere on the continent.
External Relations Officer
Allison is a graduate of the University of Georgia and the George Washington University, where she completed a master’s degree in art history. She brings to CAS not only a deep love of African culture, history, and art, but a depth of experience managing outreach events and fundraising at Harvard. She most recently was the Assistant Director for International Advancement in the Harvard University Development Office, and prior to that was Development and Events Coordinator at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
