I earned a PhD in Geography (1993) from UCLA with an allied field concentration in Urban Planning. My MA (UCLA, 1986) is in African Area Studies, with Geography and Urban Planning as the major and minor fields. I have a BA with Honors in History from Bowdoin College, with concentrations in African and African-American History. I have taught courses on African development and cities of the developing world for more than a dozen years. I have conducted research on African development and urban planning for more than two decades.

My record includes more than thirty publications, including the books, Verandahs of Power: Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa (Syracuse, 2003) and Disposable Cities: Garbage, Governance and Sustainable Development in Urban Africa (2005, Ashgate), and articles in journals such as the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Geographical Review, Area, Urban Studies, Political Geography, and the Journal of Modern African Studies. I have earned research grants from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright, National Geographic Society, and other agencies in the past decade. I am fluent in Kiswahili and I might eventually become competent in Chinyanja.