Timothy Shaw, Ph.D. (Princeton), University of Ottawa (adjunct/retired). Having lived an illustrious scholarly career, Professor Timothy Shaw now serves at the University of Ottawa to stay active during retirement. Prior to this, he was Director and Professor at the Institute of International Relations at the University of the West Indies (Trinidad and Tobago), where he managed operations at all of the Caribbean campuses of this institution. He has also served at Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia) from 1971 to 2001. During that time he was as Director of the Centre for African Studies at the same institution from 1983 to 1990, of the Pearson Institute for International Development (1985-1988), and of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies (1993-2000). He also served as Director and Professor of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies from 2001 to 2006 at the University of London (where he is now Professor Emeritus). At the moment he is, concurrently, a Senior Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation at the University of Waterloo, Bank of Uganda Visiting Professor of Development Studies at Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda (2000- ), and Extraordinary Professor of Political Science at Stellenbosch University in South Africa (1998- ). Professor Shaw has also been a Visiting Faculty at Aolborg University, Denmark (2000-1); Carleton University (1978-9 and 2008); University of Manchester (1991); Nihon University, Japan (1996); Obafemi Awolow University, Nigeria (1979-80); University of Zimbabwe (1989); and University of Zambia (1973-4), among others. He was a member of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission from 2002 to 2009, and serves as Editor of the International Political Economy of New Regionalisms Series (Ashgate Publishing) and International Political Economy Series (Palgrave MacMillan). Some of his recent publications include New Approaches to the Governance of Natural Resources: Insights from Africa (co-edited), and Africa and International Relations in the Twenty-First Century (co-edited).

Ian Spears, Ph.D. (McGill), Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Guelph. Dr. Spears teaches courses in international relations and the politics of developing areas (specifically Africa) at the University of Guelph. His primary research interests have focused on conflict and civil war in various regions of Africa.  He has published a number of articles and book chapters on problems of sharing power as a form of conflict resolution.  His most recent publication, Civil Wars in African States: The Search for Security (Lynne Rienner/First Forum, 2010), is a book length examination of the strategies of disputants to advance their security in conflicts in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Angola.  This volume enabled him to explore the contexts in which disputants would embrace strategies of secession, integration, or domination.  A second strand of research has focused on the relationship between political development and conflict.  With his colleague Paul Kingston, Dr. Spears published an edited volume entitled States Within States: Incipient Political Entities in the Post Cold War Era, which examined political formations which have many of the features of statehood but do not, as yet, have political recognition. Dr. Spears is currently working on a book length examination of the broader problems of conflict resolution.  Under the working title Why Conflict Resolution Fails, this volume seeks to challenge students to think about the reasons why so many conflicts persist.  Dr. Spears has also been involved in generating discussions on the issue of peace-building, recently serving as a workshop organizer examining the role of Peace-Building 20 years after the publication of Boutros Boutros Ghali’s landmark Agenda for Peace.

Nana Araba Apt, MSW (Toronto), Ph.D. (U of Ghana), Dean of Academic Affairs, Ashesi University College, Accra, Ghana. Dr. Nana Araba Apt is an internationally recognized scholar and expert on human development issues in Africa. Her academic profession is backed by six years’ practical experience in Ghana’s civil service in the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development in charge of women’s development affairs as well as managing rural development programs. She is a frequent consultant to many human development organizations including UN organizations and African Union’s Commission on Social Development. Through her research work in Ghana, she has initiated two NGOs working on behalf of older people (HelpAge Ghana), street children (RESPONSE) and most recently, a Foundation, College for Ama (CofA) for the education of girls in rural areas. Prof Apt is currently one of HelpAge International’s five global ambassadors and a member of the Steering Committee on Ageing for the African Union’s Commission on Social Development. Prof Apt was a member of the UN technical committee for the Madrid World Assembly on Ageing in 2002. Currently, she is an advisory board member of World Health Organization’s Ageing and Health program and in Ghana, she is a member of the Ministerial advisory committee for the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment. Her most recent consultancy reports include Government of Ghana’s Ministry of Manpower Youth and Employment Department of Social Welfare Capacity Assessment (July 2007); and UNDP/DFID: Ghana Human Development Report, for which she was Co-ordinator and Editor-in-Chief (December 2007). Professor Apt has published widely on social development issues in Africa. Her research and publication record bridges disciplinary applications in gerontology, family relations, child development and women’s education.

Reverend David Pfrimmer, Ph.D. (Princeton), Dean/Principal, Waterloo Lutheran Seminar, Wilfrid Laurier University. After twenty years working on public policy issues and in the ecumenical and multifaith community, Dr. Pfrimmer believes churches are in the process of articulating a new theology to address a changing context for mission and witness. Diakonia or social ministry is increasingly causing the church to engage globalization, human rights, the ecological future, and political and social questions as profoundly theological as well as social issues. Dr. Pfrimmer has a keen interest in applied Christian ethics. Among the courses he has developed are Liberation and Development, Church and Society–Organizing for Community Action and God and Globalization. Some of his recent research has focused on social justice movements in Canada since WW II and reclaiming the vocation of government. Reverend Dr. David Pfrimmer has been heavily invested in Africa over the years and was one of the architects of negotiating debt forgiveness for heavily impoverished countries at the international level through multilateral initiatives, and for spearheading undertakings that pushed for compliance to ethical standards by corporate entities in developing societies.

Ali Abdi, Ph.D. (McGill), Professor, University of Alberta. Dr. Ali Abdi’s industrious scholarship has garnered him a meteoric rise in his career. He is Professor of Education Policy Studies and also Founding Co-Director of the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER), University of Alberta. Professor Abdi’s areas of research expertise include comparative and international education; global citizenship and human rights education; policy studies in education; social and cultural foundations of education; multi-centric philosophies and methodologies of education and postcolonial studies in education. He is the author/co-editor/co-author of numerous scholarly work including The Dialectics of African Education and Western Discourses; Decolonizing Philosophies of Education; Citizenship Education and Social Development in Zambia; African Education and Globalization; and Issues in Africa Education. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Council of Canadians of African and Caribbean Heritage (CCACH), is a member of the International Association of Universities (IAU) Panel of Experts, and has served as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors for the Northern Alberta Alliance of Race Relations (NAAR) from 2007-2008. Professor Abdi is Founding Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education and Founding Co-editor of Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry. His international work encompasses Brazil, South Africa, Zambia, Somalia, and Senegal. Some major awards/distinctions conferred on Professor Abdi include appointment as Adjunct Professor, Catholic University of Brasilia (2010); Adjunct Professor, University of Malta (2010); McCalla Professorship (Uganda Teaching Project) (2008-2009), and Graduate Teaching Award (2006).

Carol B. Duncan, Ph.D. (York), Associate Professor and immediate Past Chair, Department of Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University. Dr. Carol Duncan is a sociologist of religion. Her areas of expertise encompass African diaspora, African Caribbean religion, African-Canadians, and religion and immigration. A crucial component of her work addresses: notions of diversity, diaspora, and transnationality; appropriate methodologies for their study in field research and visual cultural contexts; and their impact on the development of Caribbean religious identities and communities in migration. Dr. Duncan has published on a variety of subjects including the Spiritual Baptist faith in Canada; black Caribbean women's religious lives; black women and motherhood; and gender, race, and cultural representation in film and video. She has published This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto. Dr. Duncan is also co-author of Black Church Studies: An Introduction, and Approaches in Black Religion, Culture and Society. She is presently working on a project entitled Caribbean Religion and Visual Culture in Canada. She served as a consultant to and appears in the award-winning documentary, Seeking Salvation: A History of the Black Church in Canada.

Stephen Schmidt, LL.B. (Toronto), BA Economics (Waterloo). Barrister Schmidt carries a busy law practice in the Kitchener, Ontario, with focus on all aspects of Canadian immigration law since 1989. His practice also encompasses commercial litigation, wills and estates, and family law. He takes a keen interest in political history, current events, human rights issues and foreign policies as they relate to the countries of origin of his clientele. Barrister Schmidt’s practice also serves as an advocate for the immigration needs and access to justice of a wide range of members in African-Canadian communities.

The Tshepo Institute is pleased that have such distinguished members of the global community sit on its Advisory Board – spanning a cross-section of age, gender, and demography in addition to their areas of expertise as concern Africa.