Mission statement:
FGAGA advances equity for African women and girls through advocacy, education, and research
Professional background:
Dr. Peter Alegi
Peter Alegi is an Assistant Professor of History and a Core Faculty member of the African Studies Center at Michigan State University. He is the author of _Laduma! Soccer, Politics, and Society in South Africa_ (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004). Currently, Alegi is working on a book manuscript entitled _African Soccerscapes: Sport, Race, Nation, and Capitalism_ (Ohio University Press, forthcoming 2009). It explores how Africans appropriated football—the leviathan of African sport—as an amateur pastime and how subsequent local and global dynamics have made football in Africa into a professional industry shaped by labor migration, transnational capital, and mass media. Alegi's keen interest in the intersections between social history and cultural history, gender history, labor history, and political history inform his new research on the history of community-based beauty pageants in South Africa. Alegi teaches courses in South African and African history, comparative history of sport, and he supervises several doctoral students. He serves as Book Reviews Editor for _Soccer and Society_ and is a member of the Editorial Board of the _International Journal of African Historical Studies_. In January 2008, Alegi and Peter Limb launched the "Africa Past & Present" podcast at: http://afripod.aodl.org/
Dr. Martha Saavedra :
Since 1993, Martha Saavedra has been the Associate Director of the Center for African Studies [http://ias.berkeley.edu/africa/], an interdisciplinary research center supporting basic research and training of scholars as well as providing resources on Africa to the greater community. With a doctorate in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1991), her research has included agrarian politics and ethnic conflict in Sudan, and gender and sports in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa. She has taught at St. Mary's College of California and at UC Berkeley, and her courses have covered a range of topics, including political economy in the third world, women in Africa, women and international development, and gender and sports. Her publications include articles and chapters on various aspects of gender and sport and on ethnic politics in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. She is currently working on the question of Islam, sport and gender in Africa. She is on the editorial boards of Soccer and Society; Sport in Society; and The Interdisciplinary Journal of Sports in Africa. She serves on the executive board of the West African Research Association. A veteran of Title IX battles, she has played soccer for 30 years and now coaches her son's team.
Dr. Juliette Storr, Assistant Professor of Communications ... Penn State University
Dr. Athena Yiamouyiannis :
Athena Yiamouyiannis joined the Ohio University faculty in 2006. She served as the Executive Director of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport (NAGWS) for three years and worked for ten years at the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). At the NCAA, she was Director of Membership Services overseeing the rules education operations and served as liaison to the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics. She also served on the Board of Directors for the National Association for Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA). Yiamouyiannis continues to conduct research and author publications on Title IX and issues impacting girls and women in sport. She presents on this topic at local, regional, national and international conferences. She has also served as the Executive Editor for the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and served as the Managing Editor for GWS News. Yiamouyiannis competed for the Ohio State Buckeyes in track and cross-country and continues pursuing her interest in outdoor activities by biking, hiking, and golfing.
