Yolanda Covington-Ward was appointed professor and chair of the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was an associate professor and department chair in Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Covington-Ward is the president of the Association for Africanist Anthropology. She is the author of Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo (Duke University Press, 2015). She is co-editor of Embodying Black Religions in Africa and Its Disaporas (Duke University Press, 2021) and co-author of African Performance Arts and Political Acts (University of Michigan Press, 2021).
Dr. Covington-Ward is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Michigan.
Andrea Locke was appointed an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry at Vanderbilt University. Her research specializes in developing affordable, portable, and rapid point-of-care glucose management devices. She has been a postdoctoral scholar at Vanderbilt since 2018.
Dr. Locke earned a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Texas A&M University.
Dale Sanders was named a professor of health administration and business administration at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was a professor of healthcare administration and business administration at Alma College in Michigan, where he had taught since 2010.
Dr. Sanders earned a doctor of osteopathic medicine degree from the University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kansas City and a doctor of health administration degree from Central Michigan University.
Ngozi Nnaji has joined the faculty in the business department at Fisk University in Nashville after a 20-year career in the insurance industry. In 2017, she founded Ako Brokerage Services.
Ngozi earned a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University. She holds a master’s degree in risk management and insurance from Florida State University.
Marsha Allen is a new professor of earth science at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Her research as a hydrogeologist focuses on fractured rock aquifers.
A native of Tobago, Dr. Allen is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she majored in geology. She earned a master’s degree in earth and environmental sciences at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and a Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Michell Chresfield is a new assistant professor of Africana studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She has been serving as a lecturer at the University of Birmingham in England. Dr. Chresfield is working on a book entitled What Lies Between: Race, Science, and Prehistory of Multiracial America.
Dr. Chresfield is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where she majored in American and Canadian studies. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
