Biography

As a global educator and anthropologist, my research merges STEM, social sciences, and humanities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the USA.

With UCC-IL, I serve as Chair Emeritus of the Angola Partnership Team, focused on postwar development in a region my ancestors once governed 700 years ago, and areas impacted by US African American and Canadian missions since 1880.

As a direct bloodline descendant of the founders of the Kongo Federation of Kingdoms, my ancestors governed Angola's Malanje Province before 1619. In Virginia, my ancestors became known as Melungeons, merging with the Saponi Indians two centuries before settling the Illinois Trail of Tears.

Although I was born in Chicago, my grandmother's family still own farms on our Underground Railroad homesteads at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Four centuries of Black Maroon freedom empower my independent research and journeys towards true equity.

Previous Education

University of California (Berkeley) African Studies 2006
New York University African Politics, French, Education 2004