Olutoyosi “Toyo” Aboderin has joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the department of history and the Africana studies program. She previously served as the inaugural Andrew W. Mellon fellow for Africana Studies at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. In her scholarly work, she specializes in the portrayal of Black womanhood in media.
A first-generation Nigerian from New Jersey, Dr. Aboderin is a graduate of Stockton University, where she majored in communication studies. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Africology and African American studies from Temple University in Philadelphia.
Kyle Brooks has joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the department of theology and religious studies and the Africana studies program. His academic work explores the communicative conditions of religion, politics, and Black expressive cultures. His new book, Chasing Ghosts: The Politics of Black Religious Leadership, is forthcoming from Georgetown University Press.
Dr. Brooks received his bachelor’s degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology and his master of divinity degree from Yale University. He holds a Ph.D. in religion from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Matthew Vega has joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the department of theology and religious studies and the Africana studies program. As a scholar of race and religion, his teaching and research interests focus on the dynamics of race and class in Black, Latin American, and majority world theologies of liberation.
Dr. Vega is a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, where he majored in biblical and theological studies. He holds a master’s degree in religion and a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Chicago.
