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

Associate Professor, African and African American Studies
Kiswahili Language Instructor

Dr. Peter Ojiambo is an Associate 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.

Cécile Accilien

cecileaccilien@ku.edu 

Acting Chair of the African and African-American Studies Department

Cécile Accilien is Acting Chair of the African and African-American Studies department, in addition, she is an Associate Professor of Haitian Studies and Director of the Institute of Haitian Studies in the department. Her primary areas of interest include Haitian Studies, Gender Studies, and Film Studies

Emily Riley

rileyem@ku.edu

Assistant Director, Kansas African Studies Center

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.