People

​​Elizabeth MacGonagle

macgonag@ku.edu

Dr. Liz MacGonagle is an African historian in the Departments of History and African & African American Studies. She learned Kiswahili when studying in Kenya and as undergraduate, and she now speaks Portuguese and Ndau, a dialect of Shona. 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. Dr. MacGonagle is currently engaged in analyzing intersections between history and memory at several African sites of memory central to the heritage of slavery.

Peter Ojiambo

ojiambo@ku.edu

Assistant Professor, African and African American Studies
African Languages Coordinator

Dr. Peter Ojiambo is an Assistant Professor of African & African-American Studies. His area of teaching expertise 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 before coming to KU. His research focuses on African education, especially studies of the Starehe Boys Center and School of Kenya. He has published in this area and on education, democracy, and development.

Naima Boussofara

nboussofara@ku.edu

​Dr. Naima Boussofara received her Ph.D in applied linguistics and also specializes in sociolinguistics. She teaches courses on Arabic language, Arab cultures and societies. Her current research is on the intersection between linguistic choices and linguistic ideologies in political and media discourse of diglossic and bilingual Arabic-speaking communities.  She coordinates the successful Arabic Language Program at KU and serves as the director of the KU Arabic Language Summer Institute at Al Akhawan University in Morocco. Dr. Boussofara is a member of the Middle Eastern Studies Association, the Arabic Linguistics Society, the American Institute for Maghreb Studies and the American Association of Teachers of Arabic.

Ibrahima Ba

i156b151@ku.edu

Wolof, African and African American Studies

Ibrahima Ba is a PhD student in Linguistics at KU. He focuses on phonetics, phonology, syntax, and second language acquisition.

Mackenzie Jones

mackenziejones@ku.edu

Assistant Director, Kansas African Studies Center

Mackenzie Jones, Kansas African Studies Center Assistant Director, received her Master’s in Environmental Management from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 2012. Her interest and passion for Africa stem from her time as an Elrod Fellow working with a small, education focused non-profit in Kampala, Uganda in 2009. Her graduate studies included coursework in African environmental issues and African history. While on staff at KU, she has also studied KiSwahili.