Alumni
The W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies is a vibrant center of intellectual productivity and interdisciplinary teaching and research. But because of the statewide and nationwide budget crisis, we are threatened with severe losses in state funding. Please help us preserve our capacity to continue providing our students with excellent education. Your contributions will help us offer scholarships and social events, and host visits by internationally renowned scholars. If you have made contributions to the Department in the past, thank you again. For those who have not, please contribute now to help the Du Bois Department continue its tradition of excellence during this period of economic crisis.
Information for graduates of the Du Bois Department
If you were a graduate or undergraduate student in the UMass Amherst Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, please email Tricia Loveland to update your alumni profile in our Graduate Alumni Directory. Also we have created a Facebook page for alumni and current students to network (see below). Stay connected to UMass and support the Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies.
Dissertation committees may unanimously award students with a distinction for their doctoral work. All dissertations earning a distinction during the defense are automatically nominated for the annual Esther M. Terry Award for the most outstanding dissertation.
Ph.D. Alumni
2023
Yelana Sims, Lecturer, African American Studies, Penn State Abington
Bianki Torres, Lecturer, Afro-American Studies, UMass Amherst
Cécile Yézou, Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, Baylor University
2022
DeRoy Gordon
Chloe Hunt
Olivia Ekeh
Kiara Hill
Candace King
2021
Alex Carter
Christopher J. Martin
Johanna Ortner
Leydi Vidal Perlaza
Fangfang Zhu
2020
Kourtney Senquiz, Assistant Professor, Clark University
2019
Nadia Alahmed, Assistant Professor, Africana Studies, Dickinson College
2018
Evan Howard Ashford, Assistant Professor, African and Latino Studies, SUNY Oneonta
Peter Blackmer, Research Fellow, Detroit Equity Action Lab, Wayne State University
Nneka Dennie, Assistant Professor, History, Washington and Lee University
Carlyn Ferrari, Assistant Professor, English, Seattle University
Angelique Warner
2017
Julia Bernier, Assistant Professor, History, University of North Alabama
Crystal Donkor, Assistant Professor, English, New Paltz SUNY
Spencer Kuchle
Trent Masiki, Assistant Professor of African Studies, Social Sciences and Policy Studies Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Xianzhi (Shirley) Meng
Kelli Morgan
Jacinta Saffold, Assistant Professor, English, University of New Orleans
Crystal Webster, Assistant Professor, History, University of British Columbia
2016
Flávia Santos de Araújo, Lecturer, Africana Studies, Smith College
Markeysha Davis, Assistant Professor/Program Director, Literature and Africana Studies, University of Hartford
2015
H. Zahra Caldwell, Assistant Professor, Ethnic and Gender Studies, Westfield State University
Emahunn Campbell
Julia Charles, Assistant Professor, Early African American Literature, Auburn University
J. Anthony Guillory, Assistant Professor, Springfield Technical Community College (STCC)
Jason Hendrickson, Assistant Professor, English, CUNY LaGuardia Community College
Karla Zelaya, Assistant Professor, English and Afro-American Literature, University of North Alabama
2014
2013
Allia Abdullah Matta, Assistant Professor, English, LaGuardia College CUNY
James Carroll
David Swiderski, Visiting Professor, Wesleyan University
2012
Ernest Gibson, III, Associate Professor, English, Co-Director of Africana Studies, Auburn University
McKinley Melton, Assistant Professor, English, Gettysburg College
Jamal Watson, Professor, Trinity Washington University, and Editor, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
2011
Kabria Baumgartner, Dean's Associate Professor, History and Africana Studies, Northeastern University
Jonathan Fenderson, Assistant Professor, African & African-American Studies, Washington University
2010
Catherine Adams, Assistant Professor, English, Paine College
Jacqueline Jones, Assistant Professor, English, CUNY LaGuardia Community College
David Lucander, Associate Professor, Mulitcultural Studies, SUNY Rockland Community College
Christopher Tinson, Associate Professor, History and Director of African American Studies, Saint Louis University
2009
Daniel McClure, Assistant Professor, African American History, Grand Valley State University
Alesia McFadden, Adjunct, Prince George's Community College
Anthony Ratcliff, Assistant Professor, Pan-African Studies, California State University
2008
Thomas Edge, Instructor, Ethnic Studies, Bowling Green State University
Zebulon Miletsky, Associate Professor, Africana Studies & History, Stony Brook University
2007
Michael Forbes
Ousmane Power-Greene, Associate Professor, History and Director of the Africana Studies, Clark University
Rita Reynolds, Chair and Associate Professor, History, Wagner College
Lindsey Swindall, Teaching Assistant Professor, College of Arts and Letters, Stevens Institute of Technology
W.S. Tkweme, Assistant Professor, Pan-African Studies, University of Louisville
Paul Udofia
Angelica Whitmal, Academic Advisor, CPE, UMass Amherst
2006
Sandra Duvivier
David Goldberg, Associate Professor, Africana Studies, Wayne State University
Andrew Rosa, Assistant Professor, Diversity and Community Studies, Western Kentucky University
2005
Tanya Mears, Assistant Professor, History and Politics, Worcester State University
Trimiko Melancon, Associate Professor, English and Africana Studies, Rhodes College
2004
Shawn L. Alexander, Professor and Chair, African & African American Studies; Director of Graduate Studies; and, Director of the Langston Hughes Center, University of Kansas
Brandon Hutchinson, Associate Professor, English, Southern Connecticut State University
Jennifer Jensen-Wallach, Associate Professor, History, University of North Texas
2003
Stephanie Evans, Chair, History Department and Associate Professor, African American and Africana Women's Studies, Clark Atlanta University
2002
Carolyn Powell
Francis Njubi Nesbitt, Associate Professor, Africana Studies at San Diego State University
Christopher Lehman, Professor, African American Studies and Ethnic Studies, St. Cloud State University
Terminal M.A. Alumni
Radiance Flowers, May 2021
Nasir Marumo, May 2018
Xavier G. Orr, May 2017
Olivia Brown, May 2014
Radwa Ashour (1946-2014), the Egyptian writer and scholar born in Cairo, Egypt in 1946, is the department's first Ph.D. graduate. She earned her degree in African American Literature at the University of Massachusetts in 1975 (working jointly in the English & the Du Bois Department).
In 1973, a joyfully-cultivated friendship with Shirley Graham Du Bois, world traveler, litterateur, and widow of W.E.B., led Ashour to UMass. Madame Du Bois, as the école-educated Ashour called her liaison to Amherst, was living in Cairo at the time, and pointed the young Egyptian toward the then-infant Afro-American Studies department here. "She said, 'the best department in the United States is at UMass,'" recalled Ashour, remembering how Du Bois returned from a visit to Massachusetts with an application and a scholarship for her protegé. Ashour has published seven novels, an autobiographical work, two collections of short stories and five books of criticism. Part I of her Granada Trilogy won the Cairo International Book Fair “1994 Book of the Year Award”; the Trilogy won the First Prize of the First Arab Woman Book Fair (Cairo, Nov. 1995). She has co-edited a major four-volume work on Arab women writers (2004) and its English translation: Arab Women Writings: A Critical Reference Guide: 1873-1999 (AUC Press 2008). In 2007 Ashour was awarded the Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature. She was a professor of English and Comparative Literature, Ain Shams University, Cairo.
