About

Wendy Wilson-Fall is an African American social anthropologist who received her doctorate in African Studies from Howard University in 1985, after having spent three years in northern Nigeria where she earned a Master’s from Ahmadu Bello University.  While at Howard, she studied Arabic, and in Nigeria she conducted research on Fulani nomadic communities and learned both Fulani and Hausa. For her doctorate fieldwork she returned to West Africa and resided in Niger for three years.  Upon her return from Niger, Wilson-Fall worked as an independent rural development consultant in several countries, and then joined the African Development Foundation team. After five successful years at the African Development Foundation, she left to live and work in Senegal.  Wilson-Fall lived in Senegal for roughly thirteen years and after returning to the United States has gone back regularly to visit, sometimes for months at a time.  Wilson-Fall served as the West Africa Regional Coordinator (in Dakar) for the National Council of Negro Women, the Director of the West African Research Center (WARC) in Senegal (1999-2004) and served as President of the Board for the Center’s sponsoring organization, The West African Research Association, WARA. (2015-2020). In research for her book Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic, (2015) she also traveled to Madagascar several times.