invited SPEAKERS (Confirmed) 

Michael Eze

Associate Professor of Africana Studies at California State University, Fresno, USA

With a strong background and training in Political Science (+International Studies), History (+ cultural reflection) and Philosophy my work, teaching, and research is intensely interdisciplinary. I seek epistemic convergence where these traditions reproduce knowledge formations that are both holistic and contemporaneous to our modern society (often a realist perspectivism). In Political Science , my work is Global Justice at the intersection of transitional justice mechanism and legitimation of political change. I teach courses in (i) Postcolonial/decolonial theories and methods, (ii) Politics of Africa, (iii) Development Politics and State Legitimation, (iv) Foreign Aid and Politics of Development. In History, I focus on culture, nationalism, and social change. Linked to Africa and Africana Diaspora studies especially, I write, teach and research on (i) Modern/Cultural History of Africa, (ii) Social and Religious Movements in Africa, (iii) The transatlantic Experience, (iv) Africana History of Ideas/Intellectual History, (v) Global Cultures, (vi) Global Identity Experience. In philosophy, my work gravitates around the philosophy of race and reconciliation as well as the philosophy of race and resistance. Herein, I research and teach courses in (i) Africana Critical Race Theory, (ii)African Philosophy, (iii) Africana Political Theory, (iv) Ethics, and (v) History of Africana Philosophy.

Ruqaiijah Yearby  

Kara J Trott Professor in Health Law and Professor, Department of Health Services Management and Policy, Ohio State University, USA

Ruqaiijah Yearby, J.D., M.P.H has been a law professor for over 20 years. She is also Co-founder and a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Healing Justice & Equity (https://ihje.org/) and one of the Co-Founders of the Collaborative for Anti-Racism & Equity (https://herenow.org/). Professor Yearby is also a nationally and internationally recognized scholar, whose research focuses on health care disparities and law, justice and medical research. Using empirical data, her research explores the ways in which laws enacted to grant equal access to quality health care through traditional means, while ostensibly aimed at protecting the disenfranchised, pose significant barriers to the victims of discrimination and exploitation by limiting their right to pursue legal claims to rectify egregious harms. Professor Yearby has received over $5 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study structural racism and discrimination in vaccine allocation as well as the equitable enforcement of housing laws and structural racism in the health care system. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Bioethics, American Journal of Public Health, Emory Law Journal, Health Affairs, and the Oxford Journal of Law and the Biosciences. She earned her B.S. in Honors Biology from the University of Michigan, M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. She worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as an Assistant Regional Counsel and served as a law clerk for the Honorable Ann Claire Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Caesar Atuire