Current Visiting Scholars
Chernoh Alpha M. Bah is a historian and journalist specializing in the medical, legal, and economic history of West Africa, with a complementary interest in Africanist anthropology. He earned his PhD in History from Northwestern University and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Service at the Chabraja Center for Historical Studies (CCHS). Dr. Bah researches the history of medicine and medical experimentation in colonial West Africa. His current book project, tentatively titled Convicts in a Province of Freedom: Public Health, Forced Labor, and the Revenue Crisis in Colonial Sierra Leone 1787–1947, examines how prison labor enabled medical, infrastructural, and agricultural projects in Sierra Leone from the period of British occupation to the end of the Second World War.
Over the last two years, Bah has served as the inaugural postdoctoral research associate at the Africa Initiative at Brown University’s Watson School for International and Public Affairs. At Brown University, he has been working on a project that investigates the origins, mechanisms, and impact of illicit financial flows from West Africa, covering the period from the 1970s to the present day. In addition to his research, Bah teaches seminars on the relationship between media and nation-building in Africa for the Watson School’s undergraduate international and public affairs concentration. He also designed and teaches a foundational investigative journalism course for pre-college students at Brown University’s Pre-College Summer Program.
In addition to his academic work, Dr. Bah has worked extensively in West Africa as a journalist, anti-corruption campaigner, and writer. He authored The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa: Corporate Gangsters, Multinationals, and Rogue Politicians (2015) and Neocolonialism in West Africa: A Collection of Essays (2014). He is currently editor-in-chief of the Africanist Press, an investigative journalism project focused on anti-corruption, democracy, and free speech in Africa. His work has appeared on the BBC, Radio France International, AFP, DW, and other outlets. Dr. Bah also produces Voice From Exile, a weekly podcast sponsored by Northwestern University’s Program of African Studies and produced by Africanist Press.
Contact him at chernohbah@africanistpress.com.
John Njoroge joins PAS as the new Foreign Language Teaching Assistant.
Contact him at john.njoroge@northwestern.edu.