Interim Director
Abosede George | [email protected]
Office Hours: Mondays, 2:40 PM — 4:00 PM in Knox Hall, Suite 201
Abosede George is a historian of modern Africa based at Barnard College and Columbia University. Her areas of specialization include West African history, most specifically the History of Lagos, the history of Youth and Childhood, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Urban History, and Migration History. Her book, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development, was published by Ohio University Press. It received the Aidoo-Snyder book prize in 2015 from the African Studies Association Women’s Caucus. Her writings have appeared in the Journal of Social History, the Journal of West African History, Meridians, Women's Studies Quarterly, Scholar and Feminist Online, Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the American Historical Review, the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, The Washington Post, and the Bloomsbury press series, A Cultural History of Youth among others. Her current research examines how migrant diasporic and refugee communities reshaped notions of citizenship and belonging in 19th century Lagos.
Associate Director
Jinny Prais | [email protected]
As Associate Director of the Institute of African Studies, Jinny Prais manages the Institute's operations, finances, programming, communications, outreach, and development. She develops and maintains partnerships across Columbia, New York City, and international institutions, oversees student and alumni engagement, and manages the Institute's web and social media presence. She carries a portfolio that spans grant development and management, visiting scholar coordination, human resources, and institutional continuity across leadership transitions. She advises the SIPA Africa Specialization and the IAS Graduate Certificate in African Studies.
Prais works at the intersection of teaching, advising, student engagement, and scholarship and program development. She serves as Adjunct Assistant Professor in MESAAS and SIPA, where she teaches African Civilization, Locating Africa in the Twentieth-Century World, and Citizenship and Social Movements in Africa.
Prais co-leads the African Humanities Project, a collaborative initiative developing shared, modular approaches to African humanities teaching across partner institutions in Morocco, Senegal, and France. She has led and managed grant-funded initiatives supported by the Mellon Foundation, the French American Cultural Exchange, the Alliance Program, and multiple internal grants, advancing programming in African humanities, politics, work, and citizenship. She leads Africa House, a student engagement initiative connecting undergraduate and graduate students across Columbia to Africa and African Studies through programming, field trips, film festivals, and cross-institutional collaboration.
Prais holds a PhD in History and Women's Studies from the University of Michigan. Her publications include "'Casting the Badge of Inferiority Beneath Black Peoples' Feet'" (with Mamadou Diouf), Global Intellectual History (2013), and "Representing an African City and Urban Elite," in The Arts of Citizenship in African Cities (2015). She is currently completing a book manuscript, Between Empire and the World: West African Intellectuals in the Early Twentieth Century. She is writing a history of African Studies at Columbia and of African students and their organizations on campus, work that extends the intellectual concerns of the manuscript.
African Language Coordinator
Mariame Sy | [email protected]
Mariame Sy is the Coordinator of the African Language Program and a Lecturer in Wolof and Pulaar in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS). She came to Columbia University in Fall 2005 from the Department of Linguistics at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she is finishing a Ph.D. in Linguistics. Her research interests include the morpho-phonology and syntax of West-Atlantic languages such as Wolof and Pulaar, and first and second language acquisition.
African Studies Librarian
Yuusuf Caruso | [email protected]
Yuusuf S. Caruso is the African Studies Librarian at Columbia (since 1993). He earned his doctorate in History (specialization in East Africa) from Columbia University. He is in charge of everything from and about Africa in the Libraries and offers reference consultations and class instruction. For further information on the collection or to arrange an appointment, please contact Dr. Caruso at the email above.