Nigeria’s Professor Wale Adebanwi of the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) in the United States, has been honoured as one of the distinguished recipients of the coveted Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awards.
The announcement of the 2024 awards by the Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation follows an exhaustive selection process, involving rigorous peer review of a vast pool of approximately 3,000 candidates. Among them, 188 outstanding individuals from diverse fields such as scholars, scientists, writers, historians, artists, and photographers have been recognized for their exceptional contributions.
Adebanwi, a prominent figure in academia, serves as a faculty member in the Department of Political Science and the Department of Africana Studies at UPENN, where he also holds the position of director. Prior to joining UPENN, he held teaching positions at esteemed institutions including the University of California-Davis and the University of Oxford. Notably, his appointment at Oxford marked a historic milestone as the first African scholar to be appointed as the Rhodes Professor of Race Relations and Director of the African Studies Centre.
Adebanwi boasts an impressive academic background, holding a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Ibadan, as well as another Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, where he was recognized as a Bill and Melinda Gates Scholar.
His scholarly endeavors are reflected in a prolific body of work, including publications such as ‘Authority Stealing: Anti-Corruption War and Democratic Politics in Post-Military Nigeria,’ ‘Yoruba Elites and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo and Corporate Agency,’ and ‘The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning.’ Additionally, Adebanwi has contributed to numerous edited volumes in collaboration with esteemed colleagues such as Professor Ebenezer Obadare.
The Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awards come with a significant financial grant aimed at supporting the recipients in their ongoing research and creative endeavors.
