Dr. Ibipo Johnston-Anumonwo

Board Member

Dr. Ibipo Johnston-Anumonwo, State University of New York (SUNY) at Cortland Distinguished Professor of Geography and a 2018 Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow, is a global scholar and educator par excellence. She received a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, where she was born. She received her master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her Ph.D. in geography from Clark University in Massachusetts.

 

As a young person, her childhood awareness and advocacy for people with special needs was steadily nurtured by significant role models in her life, especially Mrs. E.O. Caulcrick and Mr. J.M. Caulcrick. A sustained consciousness about equity, access and inclusivity expands to community engagement, which is evident in her lengthy record of leadership on executive boards of notable service organizations like the YWCA and Zonta International. In addition to co-authoring and co-editing five books including Global Perspectives on Gender and Space (Routledge, 2014), she currently serves on the editorial boards of The Geography Teacher, Lagos Journal of Geographic Issues, African Geographical Review, and WAGADU: Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies. She previously served on the editorial board of Gender, Place and Culture, and as President of the New York African Studies Association. Her leadership roles for the College Board Advanced Placement Human Geography exam include a four-year term on the Test Development Committee. Dr. Johnston-Anumonwo’s distinguished research was recognized by a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, a 2016 University of Florida Distinguished Anderson Scholar Award, and a U.S. Department of Transportation Research Grant. She has presented at over 150 conferences and invited talks across the U.S. and in 12 countries on 6 continents. The broad scope and multifaceted impact of Dr. Johnston-Anumonwo’s service and scholarship which focuses on human development and social justice, has resulted in transformative civic engagement, mentoring and teaching residencies both nationally and internationally. She received an American Association of Geographers Distinguished Teaching Award, among the highest honors in academic geography, as an “exemplary teacher-scholar with a strong national and international reputation.”

 

Apart from her extensively cited research on commuting constraints experienced by women of color in US cities, her chapter on gender and development in the widely read Geography of Africa textbook is among her most influential contributions. She was a 2007 USA delegate to the YWCA World Council, and was honored with a Zonta Woman of Achievement award in 2017 for her contributions towards improving the status of women and children.