CAAS Administration

Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin is the Canada Research Chair in Youth and African Urban Futures and an associate professor in both the Departments of Geography and Planning and Gender Studies at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Her current research examines the impact of contemporary urban transformations on youth identity, labour practices, psychosocial well-being, and future orientation in Lagos and Ibadan, Nigeria. She also engages with the issues of subjectivity and belonging and the use of Afrofuturism in geographic projects that address the politics of difference in popular culture.

Mohamed Sesay is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the African Studies Program in the Department of Social Science, York University. He is also a member of the UKRI GCRF Gender Justice and Security Hub at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Women, Peace and Security. His research focuses on the rule of law, legal pluralism, customary justice, transitional justice, international criminal justice, and postconflict peacebuilding in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Jones Adjei is a Sociology Instructor, and Head of Sociology, at Red Deer Polytechnic, specializing in social demography and applied statistics. His research interests include immigrant settlement experiences and population health disparities. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Sex Education, Ethnicity and Health, Canadian Studies in Population, Journal of Biosocial Science, and Canadian Ethnic Studies. In addition to his passion for teaching, he generously volunteers his research skills to enhance the operational capacity of immigrant service organizations in the Red Deer area. He has also served as a board member of the Central Alberta Immigrant Women's Association (CAIWA) for the past six years.

Nduka Otiono is a writer, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa. He is the author and co-editor of several books of creative writing and academic research. Prior to turning to academia, he was for many years a journalist in Nigeria, General Secretary of Association of Nigerian Authors, founding member of the Nigerian chapter of UNESCO’s Committee on Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage, and founding member of the Board of the $100,000 annual Nigerian Prize for Literature. A Fellow of the William Joiner Centre for War and Social Consequences, University of Massachusetts, Boston, his research interests span Cultural Studies, Oral Performance and Literature in Africa, Postcolonial Studies, Media and Communication Studies, Globalization and Popular Culture.

His recent books include Oral Literary Performance in Africa: Beyond Text (2021), Wreaths for a Wayfarer (2020), and Polyvocal Bob Dylan: Music, Performance, Literature (2019). His research has appeared in top-ranked journals such as Journal of Folklore Research, African Literature Today, Journal of African Cinema, Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies, Postcolonial Text, Wasafiri, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, and Canadian Journal of African Studies.

His creative writing publications include The Night Hides with a Knife (short stories), which won the ANA/Spectrum Prize; Voices in the Rainbow (Poetry), a finalist for the ANA/Cadbury Poetry Prize; Love in a Time of Nightmares (Poetry) for which he was awarded the James Patrick Folinsbee Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing. He has co-edited Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Writing from Nigeria (2006); and We-Men: An Anthology of Men Writing on Women (1998).

Otiono obtained his doctorate in English and Film Studies from the University of Alberta where he won numerous awards including the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship, and was nominated for the Governor General’s Gold Medal for academic distinction. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Brown University where he was also appointed a Visiting Assistant Professor and the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at Carleton University.

His professional honours include a Capital Educator’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Carleton University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Early Career Award for Research Excellence, Carnegie Africa Diaspora Fellowship (twice), and Black History Ottawa Community Builder Award.

DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono is his latest book slated for release in October 2021 by Wilfrid Laurier University Press as part of Canada’s most prestigious poetry series, The Laurier Poetry Series (LPS).

Philippe M. Frowd is an Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. His research draws on critical security studies and focuses on emerging transnational forms of governance of security in the Sahel region of West Africa. His research has primarily focused on irregular migration and border control in the region and has been the focus of his latest book Security at the Borders: Transnational Practices and Technologies in West Africa (2018, Cambridge University Press). Philippe also works on the politics of non-state security provision and dynamics of militarization and intervention in the Sahel more broadly. His work has most recently appeared in Third World Quarterly, Geopolitics, and African Affairs. He is an editor of Security Dialogue.

Abel Chikanda is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society (SEES) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He holds a PhD in Geography from Western University (2010) and was an Assistant / Associate Professor at the University of Kansas (2015 – 2022). Prior to that, he was a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University (2010-2012) and Research Coordinator at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (2013-2015). He also worked as a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe (2004-2006). His research focuses on African immigrant integration, the role of diasporas in developing their countries of origin, and exploring the ways in which African cities can build sustainable and resilient food systems. He is an active member of the Southern African Migration Programme (SAMP), the African Urban Food Network (AFSUN), the Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) and the Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) research networks. For full biography and publications, please see https://experts.mcmaster.ca/display/chikana 

Dr. Isaac Odoom is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Carleton University specializing in International Relations and the Politics of Development in the Global South with a focus on Africa. Dr. Odoom attained his PhD in Political Science (International Relations and Comparative Development) from the University of Alberta, Canada. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at The Centre for Asian Studies, University of Ghana, Accra.  Dr. Odoom’s research program focuses on African Politics, International Development, Africa-China relations, China’s foreign policy, Rising Powers in Global governance, South-South Cooperation, and the Political Economy of Development in the Global South. He is also interested in Critical International Relations and pedagogy, particularly questions around academic dependency and decolonization in higher education. Dr. Odoom’s ongoing research examines the impact of Chinese energy and technology investments in Canada and across Africa. For full biography and publications, please see: https://carleton.ca/polisci/people/isaac-odoom/

"Chikezirim Nwoke (Chike) is a Vanier Scholar and PhD Candidate at Carleton University, Ottawa. He has been a Visiting Researcher at the Center of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Social and Political Science and a Visiting Research Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. He has equally received academic and research awards and grants from Darmstadt University, Germany, Memorial University, Canada, and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he completed degree programs. In addition to collaborating with multiple organizations including UNESCO and Save the Children in research and project development, Chikezirim has led and supported youth-focused initiatives in Nigeria, Cameroun, South Sudan and Ethiopia among other countries. His research which broadly circles around critical development studies, social movements, youth culture and alternative livelihood, have appeared in academic journals such as the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, Africa Spectrum, and Nokoko".

Belinda Dodson is Coordinating Editor of CJAS, a position she has held since 2015. Prior to that, she served as a CJAS Editor from 2012 to 2015. She has been a member of the Canadian Association of African Studies since 1998. She has degrees from the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa and a PhD in Geography from Cambridge University in England. She was a faculty member at the University of Cape Town in the 1990s and joined the faculty in the Department of Geography at the University of Western Ontario in Canada in 2002. Her own research examines the intersection of gender, migration and development, with a regional focus on Southern Africa. Her work has been published in edited volumes as well as journals including Africa Today, Agenda, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Feminist Review, Gender Place and Culture, Health and Place, Migration and Development, and South African Geographical Journal.

Martin Evans has been Managing Editor of CJAS since 2021, after serving as an Editor since 2015. He has been a CAAS member since 2002. Living in the UK, he gained a BSc in Botany at the University of Bristol, and an MA in Environment and Development at SOAS. This led to a PhD in Geography at SOAS and King’s College London. Following a postdoctoral position at the University of Leicester researching the role of migrant associations in local development in Cameroon and Tanzania, then a temporary lectureship there, he moved to the University of Chester in 2009, where he taught Development Studies until 2020. He is now an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University. His main interests are in rural economic and political geographies in West Africa, particularly in conflict and ‘post-conflict’ situations, with his field research focused for over two decades on the separatist rebellion in Casamance, Senegal. More recently he has returned to his interests in ecology and sustainability, researching development interventions to support paddy rice cultivation, and problems of unregulated timber extraction and deforestation, in the complex context of climate change, social change and ongoing insecurity in Casamance.

Gillian Mathys is a senior fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders and based at Ghent University. She has degrees from Ghent University and SOAS, and received her PhD in History from Ghent University in 2014. She is editor for the Canadian Journal of African Studies since 2019. Her current research focuses on decolonization, post-colonial violent conflicts and state formation in the east of the DRCongo from a longue durée perspective. Her work has been published in several edited volumes, as well as in The Journal of African History, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Conjonctures de l’Afrique Centrale, and the European Journal of Development Research. Her previous research, focusing on mobility and the historical trajectories of space and identity in the borderland between Rwanda and DRCongo is being revised as a monograph tentatively titled ‘Mobility and Exclusion: Making Borders and Identities in Central Africa’.

Dr. Jean Ntakirutimana is a linguist and a professor in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures at Brock University, Niagara Region, ON, Canada. He has a broad range of interests related to languages, education, cultures and communication, with a reliable cognizance of African languages and cultures, more particularly in the African Great-Lakes region and the surroundings.

Vanessa S. Oliveira, BA, MA, PhD, Assistant Professor of African History

History Department, Royal Military College of Canada

Dr. Oliveira teaches courses on early and modern Africa, European colonialism and African women’s history. She has published several articles and book chapters on women merchants, interracial marriage and slavery in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Her book Abolition and Slavery at Luanda is under contract with the University of Wisconsin Press. Dr. Oliveira is currently working on a project entitled A Social History of Slavery in Luanda, which focuses on the enslaved population of the capital of Angola and its hinterland during the era of “legitimate” commerce (1850-1870).

Associate Professor and Chair
BA, MA McGill University
PhD Dalhousie University

Jonathan Roberts is from Lantzville, British Columbia and he arrived at the Mount in 2008. He holds a BA and an MA from McGill University and a PhD from Dalhousie University. Jonathan specializes in the history of medicine and religion in West Africa, with a particular focus on the history of healing in Ghana. As part of a project funded by the British Library, he is currently archiving witchcraft trial records held at shrines in Accra, Ghana.  He is also interested in the politics of heritage tourism at slave forts in West Africa. At the Mount, Jonathan teaches courses in African and World history. He has recently taught the following courses: World History, Cultural Encounters in the Modern World, the Early African Past, Modern Africa, and Religions in African History

Jess Auerbach is an anthropologist and associate professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town. There she directs the MPhil in Inclusive Innovation and teaches ethnography, qualitative research methods and thinking with Africa. She is the author of two books: From Water to Wine: Becoming Middle Class in Angola (University of Toronto Press) and Archive of Kindness: The Other Side of the South African Pandemic (BK Publishing). She is an Iso Lomso Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study and a research affiliate of the University of California Santa Cruz where she is working on her current project on undersea cables linking Brazil, Angola, South Africa and Mauritius. She was recently given a Presidential Award by the South African National Research Foundation which is allowing her to set up a lab of her own researching digital Africa. She holds a PhD in anthropology from Stanford University and an MSc from Oxford where she was a Rhodes scholar.

Lesley Nicole Braun is Associate Researcher at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel. She is Principal Investigator on an SNF Ambizione grant entitled "The Travail and Travels of Congolese Transnational Trader Women" (2020-2024). Thematically, her research investigates the gendered dimensions of contemporary transnational mobility, and the ways in which gender and sexuality impact and shape women’s activities in the public sphere. Braun is author of Congo's Dancers: Women and Work in Kinshasa (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023).