Program in African Studies

People

Director

Daniel I. Rubenstein, Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology; professor and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and director of the Program in African Studies. Rubenstein's research focuses on decision making by animals: how an individual's foraging, mating, and social behavior are influenced by its phenotype, ecological circumstances, and the actions of other individuals in the population. Searching for general principles that underlie complex patterns of behavior, he develops mathematical models to generate predictions that can be tested using data gathered from structured field observations or experimental manipulations. His most recent research on the adaptive value of behavior has centered on understanding the social dynamics of equids—horses, zebras, and asses. Ongoing research awards include Water, Savannas, and Society in Sub-Saharan Africa and Technology for the Developing Regions, both funded by PIIRS; Oxford-Princeton Partnership Development: Tracking Animals for Conservation; and grants from the National Science Foundation for improvements at the Mpala Research Center in Kenya, and for collaborative research. Ph.D Duke University, 1988.

Program Manager

Rebecca Aguas
323 Aaron Burr Hall
609.258.9400
raguas@princeton.edu

Executive Committee

	V. Kofi Agawu is a professor of music in the field of musicology and music theory. His research interests include music analysis and West African music. Ph.D. Stanford University.
	Jeanne Altmann (Sits with Committee) is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, emeritus. Her interests include animal behavior and physiology. Her research deals with life history approaches to behavioral ecology and nonexperimental research design, most of which has been carried out on the baboons of Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Ph.D. University of Chicago.
	Kwame Anthony Appiah is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values. He has worked in philosophy of mind and language, ethics, and political philosophy as well as in African and African American Studies. He is currently interested in the relation between philosophical ethics and other disciplines: among them political theory, literary studies, and psychology. Ph.D. Cambridge University.
	Wendy L. Belcher is an assistant professor of comparative literature and African American studies. She specializes in early African literature, with a focus on the circulation of African thought in Europe and England before the 19th century. Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles.
	André Benhaïm is an associate professor of French and Italian. His main areas of research and teaching are 20th-century French prose literature and culture and Francophone literature and culture from North Africa and the Mediterranean. Ph.D. Emory University.
	Mariana Candido is an assistant professor of history. Her current research examines the social and political effects of the transatlantic slave trade in Benguela and its hinterland. More broadly her interests include the history of slavery, forced migration and slave trade, the South Atlantic world,; and the African diaspora. Ph.D. York University.
	Anne C. Case is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, acting director for the Center for Health and Wellbeing. Her research interests include microeconomic foundations of development, health economics, public finance, and labor economics. Ph.D. Princeton University.
	Andrew P. Dobson is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. His research is concerned with the population ecology of infectious diseases and the conservation of endangered and threatened species. He has studied infectious diseases in a variety of endangered and fragile ecosystems. Ph. D. Oxford University
	Simon E. Gikandi is the Robert Schirmer Professor of English. His major fields of research and teaching are the anglophone literatures and cultures of Africa, India, the Caribbean, and postcolonial Britain; the “Black” Atlantic; and the African diaspora. Ph.D. Northwestern University.
	Emmanuel H. Kreike is a professor of history. His research and teaching interests focus on the intersection of war/violence/population movements, environment, and society. He is particularly interested in how violence (including, for example, colonial conquest, the apartheid wars, slave raiding) and ensuing forced migration led to the destruction of human landscapes and how people rebuild lives and livelihoods in often alien environments. Ph.D. Yale University.
	Evan S. Lieberman is an associate professor of politics and faculty director of the Princeton AIDS initiative. His research investigates the relationship between institutions, patterns of political competition, and human development, with a particular focus on identity (racial, ethnic, nationalist) politics. Most of his research and teaching focus on the politics and development of Southern Africa, but his work routinely employs comparative analyses with developing countries in other parts of Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley.
	Mahiri Mwita (Sits with Committee) is a lecturer affiliated with the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. His research interests include culture-based interventions in counseling and education, authentic cultural performances and interactions in the African language classroom, internet and emerging technologies in African language pedagogy, and literary criticism and creative writing in Kiswahili. Ph.D. University of Dar es Salaam.
	F. Nick Nesbitt is a professor of French and Italian and associate chair of the Department of French and Italian. His work in Francophone studies focuses on the intellectual history of the black Atlantic world. Ph.D. Harvard University.
	Chika Okeke-Agulu is an assistant professor of art and archaeology and African American Studies. He specializes on classical, modern, and contemporary African and African diaspora art history and theory. Ph.D. Emory University.
	Tullis C. Onstott is a professor of geosciences. His research focus includes the transport of bacteria and other microorganisms in the subsurface, and the activity and survival of bacteria and other microorganisms in the subsurface and their impact on the geochemistry and mineralogy of their environment. Ph.D. Princeton University.
	Elizabeth Levy Paluck is an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs. Her research examines conflict reduction and political behavior, using large-scale field experiments in the United States and in central and horn of Africa. Ph.D. Yale University.
	S. George H. Philander is the Knox Taylor Professor of Geosciences. His research interests include interactions between the ocean and atmosphere and their role in climate fluctuations and climate changes. He is particularly interested in El Niño, a phenomenon that brings droughts to the western tropical Pacific, torrential rains to the eastern tropical Pacific, and unusual weather patterns to much of the globe. Ph.D. Harvard University.
	Carolyn M. Rouse is a professor of anthropology and african american studies. Her research focuses on why people accept systems. Her fieldwork focuses on four domains; religion, medicine, education, and development of inequality. Ph.D. University of Southern California.
	Winston O. Soboyejo is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials. He conducts experimental and theoretical research of the mechanical properties of materials. His current work focuses on the deformation, adhesion, fatigue, and fracture of thin films, biomaterials, and heterogeneous materials. He is also interested in the design of biomedical devices and biomolecular sensors for disease detection. Ph.D. Cambridge University.
	Jennifer Widner is a professor of Politics and international affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, and the director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice. Her research focuses on problems of democratization, law,and development, with special attention to sub-Saharan Africa. Ph.D. Yale University.
	Nancy Pressman-Levy (Sits with Committee) is the head of the Donald E. Stokes Library for Public and International Affairs.