KASC Staff

Liz MacGonagle is an African historian in the Departments of History and African & African-American Studies. In her research, she crosses historical, geographical, and theoretical boundaries to link nation, culture, and ethnicity to processes of identity formation in African and Diasporan settings. She has served as the Director of KASC since August 2013.

Peter Ojiambo is an Associate Professor in African and African-American Studies, and Faculty Associate Director of the Kansas African Studies Center. His research focuses on African education, especially in studies on Starehe Boys Center and School of Kenya. He has published in this area and on education, democracy and development. His area of teaching is KiSwahili and he has developed a KiSwahili teaching website. Dr. Ojiambo has held teaching positions at Ohio University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Emily Riley has more than a decade of experience researching Africa, engaging with African Studies and African languages, and working on university partnerships in Africa. She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology with a focus on political anthropology and gender in Senegal and West Africa. Her research and teaching interests include women and politics, identity politics, social media and social change, national identity formations, and hospitality.

Charlotte holds a Bachalor of Laws Degree from Makerere University, Kampala- Uganda. Her main duties include planning, coordinating and promoting Center events, including but not limited to outreach programming on and off campus.

Dr. Wawire is a Kiswahili lecturer and serves as the language coordinator for the African and African American Studies Department. Dr. Wawire has over a decade of experience in foreign and second language education. At KU, she is involved in efforts to strengthen African, diasporic languages through coordinating instruction, facilitating reverse-engineered curriculum (i.e. designed to teach outcomes) and task-based language learning. 

Jessica began working for KASC in Fall of 2013. She has been at KU since 2009, working with the Center for Global & International Studies. She provides administrative and general program support for KASC, CEAS, CGIS (including European Studies, South Asian and Middle East Studies.)

Tiphani Dixon, Program Coordinator holds an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Indiana University. Her main duties include advising students and coordinating faculty-led program opportunities in the Continent of Africa, Belgium, France, Italy, Greece, and the Middle East, as well as advising students interested in pursuing Fulbright scholarships.