RESEARCH INTERESTS
My interest in history was sparked by an American Ghana-based elementary school teacher and fueled by watching Liberty’s Kids as a child living in North Carolina. After taking an undergraduate African history course, what had started as a mere spark developed into a strong passion, hence my decision to become a historian. Today, I am a scholar of West African and African Diaspora intellectual history, nationalism, Pan-Africanism, Black internationalism, and economic development. I write on African intellectuals who worked to transform and radicalize the study of Africa in academic and intellectual centers around the Atlantic. I have received research fellowships and grants from several organizations and institutions, including the National Endowment for Humanities, Social Science Research Council and the Fulbright-IIE. My work has appeared in the Journal of African American History, African Studies Review, Radical History Review, Africa is a Country, and The Conversation. I hold a BA in History (Honors) and Political Science from the University of Notre Dame, an MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in History from Northwestern University. Prior to joining Rutgers, he served on the faculty at the University of California, San Diego, and was a Presidential Fellow at Northwestern University.
My book manuscript, “Embers of Pan-Africanism: Nkrumahist Intellectuals and Decolonization 1960-1980,” examines Ghanaian intellectuals who worked to transform and radicalize the study of Africa and its diaspora in academic and intellectual centers around the Atlantic. Drawing on rich archival research and oral histories across West Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas, the book shows how exiled Ghanaian intellectuals helped reshape Black Studies, Pan-Africanism, and global anti-colonial thought. Rather than viewing Kwame Nkrumah’s overthrow as an end-point, the book presents the period as one of intellectual expansion, diasporic exchange, and institution-building. My project breaks down the barriers between Black Studies and African Studies by recovering the dynamic history that links the study of Africa to the study of the diaspora. Thus, it makes significant scholarly contributions and interventions to the literature on pan-Africanism, migration, decolonization, and Black internationalism. My research also places the intellectual impact of Africans at the heart of current narratives of transnational encounters and connections rather than submit to the dominant scholarly and public focus on Africans as merely economic refugees.
I am also actively engaged in public-facing work, including policy consulting, media interviews, public lectures, exhibitions, and documentary filmmaking.
I love basketball, soccer, and college football, and I also enjoy traveling for archival and oral research.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
African Intellectual history, Africa Diaspora, African American history, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Radicalism, Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, Black Internationalism, Economic Development, and Black Political Thought.
Fieldwork Sites: Ghana, Senegal, Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada, the United Kingdom, Suriname, Guyana, the United States, France, and Brazil.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Uncovering Radical Histories: Anna Budu Arthur’s Everyday Politics of Decolonization and Transnational Solidarity,” Radical History Review, issue number 153 part of the collection on “Radical Histories of Decolonization.” (Forthcoming).
“The Africa-Diaspora Orbit: Anani Dzidzienyo’s Contributions to Black Studies and Black Liberation,” African Studies Review, 66, 2 (2023), 464-89. doi:10.1017/asr.2022.97. [top specialty journal for African Studies]
Akrofi, J., Angell, A. M., Gyamfi, B., Bodison, S. “Exploring Coloniality in Occupation-Based Education: Perspectives of Ghanaian Occupational Therapists,” Journal of Occupational Therapy Education, 7, 4 (2023), 1-17.
“From Nkrumah’s Black Star to the African Diaspora: Ghanaian Intellectual Activists and the Development of Black Studies in the Americas,” Journal of African American History Special Issue on Reconceptualizing the History of Black Internationalism 106, 4 (2021), 682-705. [top specialty journal for African American History]
Book Reviews
“Jeffrey S. Ahlman. Living with Nkrumahism: Nation, State, and Pan-Africanism in Ghana.” African Studies Review 2021, 1-3. doi:10.1017/asr.2020.134.
Public Scholarship
(with Kwasi Konadu) “Black Lives Matter: How far has the movement come?” September 8, 2021. https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-how-far-has-the-movement-come-165492
“Pioneiros em Estudos dos Negros,” translated by Jose Luiz Pereira da Costa, March 10, 2021. http://www.dacostaex.net/bright.pdf
“Pioneers in Black Studies,” March 2, 2021. https://africasacountry.com/2021/03/pioneers-in-black-studies
“What Does it Mean to be a Black Scholar in 2020,” July 12, 2020. https://www.brightgyamfi.com/post/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-black-scholar-in-2020
“AfriSem Conference Addresses Decolonizing African Studies,” Program of African Studies News and Events, 30, 1 (2019), 4.
AWARDS
External
• National Endowment for the Humanities, 2025.
• Faculty of California United in Scholarship, Manuscript Workshop, Berkeley, California, 2024.
• UCHRI Underrepresented Scholars Fellowship Award, 2024.
• Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College, finalist, 2022.
• The Edward A. Bouchet Honor Society, 2022.
• Fulbright Fellowship to Ghana, 2021.
• Social Science Research Council, Andrew Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship. Supported research trips to Grenada, Suriname, Senegal, and the United Kingdom, 2020.
• Ghana Studies Association’s Conference Paper Prize for Emerging Scholars for my paper titled “Ghanaian Intellectuals and the Struggle to Decenter African Studies,” Award received at the African Studies Association Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, 2019.
• Social Science Research Council, Dissertation Proposal Development Program, 2019.
• The Thomas J. McMahon IV Endowment for Excellence for the Pursuit of Scholarship, University of Oxford, 2016
Internal
• The Outstanding Faculty Award, Black Resource Center, University of California, San Diego, 2025
• Certificate of Appreciation, Eight College, University of California, San Diego, 2025.
o “This certificate is proudly presented to Professor Bright Gyamfi in recognition of their outstanding contributions as a distinguished staff/faculty member. Your dedication, support, and impact have left a meaningful mark on the student community.”
• Excellence in Teaching in African and African Diaspora Studies, African and African American Studies Research Center, University of California, San Diego, 2024.
• Presidential Fellowship, Northwestern University, 2022.
• Honorable Mention Distinction for the 2020-21 McBride Award, Northwestern University, 2021.
SELECTED SERVICE
• Treasurer, Ghana Studies Association, 2025 – present
• Board of Directors, West African Research Association, 2024 – present.
• Board of Directors, the Ghana Oxford and Cambridge Society, 2024 – present
• Consultant, the Institute for People’s Enlightenment, 2023 – present
• Inaugural Book Review Editor, The Global Black Thought (Published by University of Pennsylvania Press), 2024 – 2025
• Board Member, African and African American Studies Research Center, University of California, San Diego, 2023-2025
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
• African Studies Association, Lifetime Member
• West African Research Association, Lifetime Member
• Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora
• American History Association
• Ghana Studies Association
• African American Intellectual History
• Brazilian Studies Association