Staff
Chair-on-Leave 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). Download CV.
Interim Chair of the Committee on African Studies; Professor of Law (HLS)
Professor Lucie White is the Louis A. Horvitz Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A graduate of both Radcliffe College and HLS, White’s research and publications have centered around Anti-Poverty Law, Development, and Gender Roles. She has done extensive work and research across the African continent, most recently in Ghana. Professor White teaches Making Rights Real: The Ghana Project, which allows students to pursue fieldwork in Ghana with local partners in the fields of health and human rights.
Executive Director
Susan Cook is the Executive Director of Harvard’s Committee on African Studies. Cook’s fourteen years in Africa include teaching and curriculum development in Botswana, research on the immediate aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, and most recently, serving as Research Executive in the Royal Bafokeng Nation in South Africa. Cook has published widely on traditional leadership in Africa, the anthropology of the corporation, urban hybrid languages, and comparative genocide. Cook was Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pretoria, Visiting Assistant Professor for Research at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, and Director of the Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University. Cook earned her PhD in Anthropology from Yale University, and her BA (Honors) in Literature and Society from Brown University.
Program Manager
Maggie currently oversees the administration of CAS programming on the continent, including the Maru-a-Pula program in Botswana, and the Harvard Summer School programs in South Africa and Zanzibar. Maggie spent four years in Namibia, working for the Ministry of Education on information and communication technology (ICT) programs, and later, as the Country Director for WorldTeach, running the organization’s volunteer teaching programs in-country. Armed with a passion for Africa and social justice, she took this experience to the London School of Economics to achieve her Master’s Degree in Development Management. In 2010, Maggie returned to the United States to work as WorldTeach’s Director of Programs, overseeing programs in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Staff Assistant
Alma graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and has studied and volunteered abroad in the Middle East and South America. She has previously worked as an interpreter and research assistant at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California and at MGH as a Pediatric Asthma Coordinator with immigrants and refugees. She is also currently a faculty assistant in the Department of African and African American Studies to Professors Jean and John Comaroff.
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.
External Relations Officer
Allison is a graduate of the University of Georgia and the George Washington University, where she completed a Masters 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.
Intern
Ralph Alexander Hunt III (commonly referred to as Tre) is currently a sophomore at Harvard College pursuing a concentration in African Studies with a secondary field in East Asian Studies. After taking various courses about African languages, history, politics, and economic systems during his freshman year, Tre found himself in Ghana for the summer working at Harvard alumnus Sangu Delle ’10′s investment firm (Golden Palm Investments) and NGO (the African Development Initiative). He hopes to return to the continent this summer, and currently serves as a student intern at CAS. In his free time, Tre enjoys traveling, studying foreign languages, and reading books about Africa.
