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Professor Nwando Achebe A Noted Historian

Published on June 19, 2025

Meet Professor Nwando Achebe, daughter of Chinua Achebe, a multi award winning Nigerian American historian and academic leader at Michigan State University

Nwando Achebe Profile reveals a distinguished Nigerian American academic, academic administrator, feminist scholar, and multi award winning historian.

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She holds the esteemed position of Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History and serves as the Associate Dean for Access, Faculty Development, and Strategic Implementation in the College of Social Science at Michigan State University.

Furthermore, she is the founding editor in chief of the Journal of West African History. Her areas of specialisation include 19th Century, 20th Century, Cultural, Political, Religious, Social, Women, and Gender history.

Nwando Achebe was born in Enugu, eastern Nigeria. Her father was the renowned Nigerian writer, essayist, and poet, Chinua Achebe, and her mother was Christie Chinwe Achebe, a professor of education.

She is married to Folu Ogundimu, a professor of journalism at Michigan State University, and they have a daughter named Chino. Her older brother, Chidi Chike Achebe, is a physician executive.

Achebe earned her Ph.D. in African History from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2000. An oral historian by training, her expertise lies particularly in West African History, women, gender, and sexuality histories.

During 1996 and 1998, she served as a Ford Foundation and Fulbright Hays Scholar in Residence at The Institute of African Studies and The Department of History and International Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Her initial academic position was as an assistant professor of history at the College of William and Mary. She then transitioned to Michigan State University in 2005 as a tenured associate professor, becoming a full Professor in 2010, and now holds her endowed professorship.

Professor Nwando Achebe has received significant grants from several prestigious organisations.

These include the Wenner Gren Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Woodrow Wilson, Fulbright Hays, Ford Foundation, the World Health Organisation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.