Frieda Ekotto '86 was born in Cameroon and raised in Switzerland. In 2014, she became the first African woman to lead the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan and recently was awarded a Collegiate Professorship - one of the highest faculty honors given by the university. She is an intellectual historian and philosopher with expertise in 20th and 21st-century Anglophone and Francophone literature and in the cinema of West Africa and its diaspora. She concentrates on contemporary issues of law, race and LGBTQI issues. Ekotto has published numerous articles and books and is the recipient of grants and awards, including a Ford Foundation seed grant for research and collaborative work with institutions of higher learning in Africa. She received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï in 2018.
