President

Jude Fokwang, Regis University, USA

TERM: 2024-2026

Fokwang is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Development Practice at Regis University. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is the author of dozens of academic articles, several books and director of the award-winning documentary, Something New in Old Town (2016). He is the co-founder and director of Spears Books.

Vice President

Womai Song, Earlham College, USA

TERM: 2024-2026

Song is an Assistant Professor of African and African American studies at Earlham College. He earned his Ph.D. in history and African diaspora studies at Howard University in Washington D.C. His dissertation was titled, “The Clash of the Titans: Augustine Ngom Jua, Solomon Tandeng Muna, and Politics of Transition in Post-Colonial Anglophone Cameroon, 1961-1972.”

Treasurer

Esmeralda M. Kale, Northwestern University, USA

TERM:

Kale is the George and Mary LeCron Foster Curator of the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University. She trained as an African Studies librarian at University College London and has worked at institutions worldwide, including the University of Swaziland, Rhodes University, and Zayed University. She joined the Herskovits Library in 2003 as a bibliographer and became head curator in 2014.

Secretary

Ivoline Budji Kefen, University of Notre Dame, USA

TERM:

Kefen is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology (minoring in Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies) and a Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame.

Financial Secretary

Boniface Noyongoyo, Marshall University, USA

TERM:

Noyongoyo is Director of Departmental Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Sociology at Marshall University. He has conducted his research on international students eating habits as part of his interests for food and social inequalities. His research suggests that there is deep connection between every day food practices and academic life. A secondary line of research investigates how inequalities in built environments affect access to healthcare, food, and social services. When he is not engaged in sociological research and teaching, Dr. Noyongoyo teaches French and Italian.

Advisory Member

S.N. Nyeck, University of Colorado Boulder, USA

TERM:

Dr. Nyeck is a multidisciplinary Associate Professor in Africana/Gender Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Nyeck is trained in political economy of development at the University of California Los Angeles with specialization in International Relations and Comparative Politics, Dr. Nyeck has pursued two research streams to date. The first stream is centered on the political economy of development, governance, and global public procurement reform. The other stream reflects on gender and identity politics.

Advisory Member

Kévin Simon Shelley Baskouda, University of Maroua, Cameroon

TERM:

Dr. Baskouda is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of History at the University of Maroua, Cameroon. He received his Ph.D. in history at the University of Maroua and his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Ngaoundéré, Cameroon. His publications have appeared in Journal of Asian and African Studies, Africa Spectrum, and Canadian Journal of African Studies. Baskouda Shelley is the inaugural winner of the 2022 NAASC Outstanding Article Prize.

Founding President

Mark W. Delancey, emeritus, University of South Carolina, USA, and Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Korea

CO-FOUNDER

Mark W. DeLancey is a retired professor of political science and African studies at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC and Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Korea. He received his Ph.D. in political science at Indiana University. He is the author of numerous works on Cameroon including Cameroon: Dependence and Independence (1989) and “Credit for the Common Man in Cameroon” (1977) and “Migration to Cameroon Plantations” (1974). He co-edits, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon.

President

Mark D. Delancey, Depaul University, USA

TERM: 2016-2018

Mark Dike DeLancey is an Associate Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and director of the Islamic World Studies Program at DePaul University. He earned his Ph.D. in art history and architecture at Harvard University. He is the author of Conquest and Construction: Palace Architecture in Northern Cameroon (Brill, 2016). He co-edits, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon.

President

Julius Amin, University of Dayton, USA

TERM: 2018-2020; 2020-2022

Amin is a professor of history at the University of Dayton. He received his Ph.D. in history at Texas Tech University. He is the author of Sixty Years of Service in Africa: The U.S. Peace Corps in Cameroon (2023), African Immersion: American College Students in Cameroon (2014) and The Peace Corps in Cameroon (1992).

President

James K. Blackwell, Jr., Winston-Salem State, USA

TERM: 2022-2024