African American & African Diaspora Studies

Dr. Hewan Girma

Associate Professor & Director of Undergraduate Studies

Email: h_girma@uncg.edu

Hewan Girma joined the AADS faculty as Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2018. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies from Stony Brook University in New York. Her research interests include transnational migration, race and ethnicity, intersectional identities and African diasporic populations. She formerly taught in the Global Studies and Geography department at Hofstra University in New York. Prior to joining academia, Hewan worked for several International Non-Governmental Organizations and United Nations agencies on projects as varied as HIV/AIDS, sustainability, and poverty alleviation.She is currently working on her first book on Ethiopian Return Migrants, which provides an intersectional analysis of voluntary Ethiopian return migration, highlighting how class, gender and ethno-racial categorizations influence the motivations and post-return experiences of return migrants. She is a co-founder and co-director of the Ethiopian, East African, and Indian Ocean Research Network. She is the co-editor of Naming Africans: On the Epistemic Value of Names, published by Palgrave in 2023.

Contact Information

Office: 349 E Curry Building
Email: h_girma@uncg.edu

Current Courses

1. ADS 356: The Making of the African Diaspora
2. ADS 306: Special Topics in African Societies (Introduction to Contemporary Africa)