Jean Herskovits

Jean Frances Herskovits (born May 20, 1935) is a research professor of history at the State University of New York at Purchase specializing in African (particularly Nigerian) history and politics. Herskovits also taught at Brown University, Swarthmore College, City College of the City University of New York and Columbia University. She holds a D. Phil. in African history from Oxford University.

Early life and education

Jean Frances Herskovits was born in Evanston, Illinois on May 20, 1935 to anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits and Frances Shapiro Herskovits. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College in 1956, and her PhD. from Oxford University in 1960, writing her dissertation on freed slaves who returned to Africa and the Lagos Colony.

Career

Jean Herskovits taught at Brown University, Swarthmore College, The City College of New York, and Columbia University. She has been a professor at the State University of New York, Purchase, New York since 1977. Herskovits' thesis, "A Preface to Modern Nigeria: The Sierra Leonians in Yoruba, was written on a 1958 research trip to Nigeria and published in 1965. She was a director of United Bank for Africa from 1998 to 2005 where she also chaired the Board of Trustees of the UBA Foundation. She also served as head of the Nigeria reinvestment project of Citizens Energy Corporation and from 2001 to 2008 was a member of Conoco Phillips’ Nigeria advisory council.

She has written many articles about Nigeria in publications such as Foreign Policy and the New York Times.