Gwendolyn Mikell is Professor of Anthropology and Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She was the Director of the African Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown (1996-2007); and Senior Fellow in African Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2000-2003. Her research and writing have been focused on political and economic transitions in Africa, and on gender and peace building during African transitions. She has held a number of prestigious positions, including President of the African Studies Association (1996-7), and fellowships at the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Smithsonian Museum of African Art, the Institute for Developing Economies in Tokyo, the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana-Legon, and the Univ. of Natal in South Africa. Currently, she is completing a book manuscript on African women and peace.

At Georgetown, Dr. Mikell went through the ranks from Assistant Professor through Full Professor. She helped to create the new Anthropology major in the College at Georgetown in 2002, and she served as chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department (1992-95). She helped create the Africa Program in 1981, which graduates numerous Certificate students each year. She also created the Swahili summer program in Tanzania through the Office of International Program, which has taken students to the University of Dar Salaam since 2003.

She bridges the worlds of academia and international affairs through her work in conjunction with the G8 Workshop on the Africa, the African Center for Strategic Studies, and the National Democratic Institute. She has been a consultant with the Carter Presidential Center on Nigerian and Ghanaian electoral issues, the United States Information Agency in Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, the Foreign Service Institute, the African-American Institute, and the Museum of African Art. In addition to extensive travel in Africa, Europe, and Asia, her economic and political study missions include ones to Japan and China, the White House Conferences and workshops on Africa, and the Department of State dialogues and projects in Nigeria (2003, 1996). Her memberships include the Council on Foreign Relations, the African Studies Association, American Anthropological Association, and the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (CIES/Fulbright), and she has been a member of Boards and selection committees that include the British Marshall Fellowship, the Third World Conference Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Summit on Africa, and the Association for Women In Development.

Dr. Mikell’s books include Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana (Howard University Press, 1992; Paragon Press, 1989) and African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2005;1997). Her recent articles are in such journals as the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (2005), Encyclopedia on Women and Islamic Cultures (2005), SOULS (2004), Chimera (2003), Int’l J. of World Peace (2000), CSIS series (2000), African Studies Review (1999), Tulsa J. Comparative & International Law (1997), Yale J. International Law (1991), J. of Modern African Studies (1989), Ethnology (1988). She holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago, and the M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University.