For over 20 years of continuous work experience in academia, I have held multiple, and progressive appointments as a tenured teacher-scholar and an academic administrative leader in a range of higher educational institutions described as big and small State-Publics, Ivy League-Privates, and Liberal Arts colleges and universities with focus on both undergraduate and graduate studies. I am currently the Deval Patrick Endowed Chair of Political, Economic, and Social Innovation at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

I am also the recent former interim Dean of the John W McCormack School of Policy and Global Studies and a tenured, full Professor of Global Governance and International Relations at the university too. As interim Dean, I was responsible for the strategic, programmatic, and financial operations of the College. I provided leadership and oversight for all academic and student services, personnel and programs within the college while coordinating the dean’s office staff, associate & assistant dean, center/institute directors and department chairs where, as a team, we are responsible for achieving goals to transform the college.

Thus far, my academic and administrative roles have yielded for me a longstanding and engaging record of teaching excellence as well as a substantive body of research and scholarship that includes the publication of eight scholarly books and several articles and book chapters in global studies, African political & regional affairs, development studies, international relations, and global public policy. At the same time, as a senior academic administrator (academic director, head of unit, associate dean, and as interim Dean), I remain excited at being able to positively contribute to academic institution building, faculty research development and scholarship productivity, teaching excellence, and student success.

These experiences have afforded me a career to date that has provided an opportunity for me to achieve academic innovation and transformation in higher education while advancing and impacting changes that matter through community engagement and outreach in local, national, regional, and global arenas.