Professor Nimi Wariboko was named the Director of the African Studies Center of the prestigious Boston University, United States, last July. Wariboko is also chair of Theology, Ethics, and Philosophy of the university’s founding School of Theology. He is known for his work on social justice, poverty, and economic development, and has published two edited volumes of essays by eminent scholars.
The Center was founded in 1953 and is one of the oldest, largest, and highly respected academic centers promoting African studies in the United States. The ASC’s mission includes the promotion of knowledge of African languages and an in-depth understanding of the diversity of Africa across historical, sociocultural, ecological, and other dimensions. ASC’s innovative African Language Program offers seven African languages: Amharic, Igbo, Kiswahili, Akan Twi, Wolof, isiXhosa, and isiZulu. We plan to offer Yoruba in spring 2025. This is one of the changes Wariboko has introduced in the programs of the ASC since becoming its director last July.
With over 140 scholars affiliated with the Center, Wariboko is a world-acclaimed transdisciplinary scholar with over 30 books and 100 journal articles and book chapters. He is part of Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies and is a member of the Boston University Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure Committee (UAPT).
Wariboko was once an investment banker on Wall Street, New York, and in Lagos. While working as a banker in the now defunct Allstates Trust Bank, Lagos, he wrote Nigeria’s first books on financial statement analysis and bank valuation in the early 1990s.
At Boston University, Wariboko teaches graduate courses in economic ethics, social ethics, continental philosophy, theology, history of African Christianity, Global Pentecostalism, and literature and ethics. His vision for the ASC is to bring it into mutually beneficial partnerships with academic and research institutions in Africa, broaden Americans’ understanding of Africa, and promote African perspectives in global affairs. He is also raising funds to establish fellowships for African scholars and doctoral students at the dissertation-writing stage and set up a special program for STEM for African women to come to Boston University to learn or do research.