Biographical Information on

David S. Wiley


Professor of Sociology and Director, African Studies Center,
100 Center for International Programs, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1035
Phone (Area 517): 353-1700 - Fax: 432-1209 - Home: 332-0333 E-mail:Wiley@msu.edu

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David Wiley is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director of the
African Studies Center at Michigan State University (MSU).  With 130 faculty
who have worked in Africa, the Center is one of the largest and most highly
ranked faculties in the nation for the study of Africa.  

He has a Ph.D. in sociology and sociology of religion from Princeton, after
studying social anthropology at the University College of Rhodesia and
Nyasaland (now University of Zimbabwe).  He also obtained a Master of
Divinity degree from Yale University and a B.A. in zoology and chemistry
from Wabash College.  Previously, he worked as a professor in sociology and
chairperson of the African Studies Program at University of
Wisconsin-Madison and as lecturer at the University of Zambia.  For two
years, he served as a race relations worker in the U.S. and "Southern Rhodesia."

Recently, he has served as chairperson of the National Science Foundation
(NSF) Advisory Committee for International Programs as well as various
international committees of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS) and the American Sociological Association.  He also is a
member of the Panel on Science and Technology Information Networks for
Africa of the National Research Council (NRC) Board on Science and
Technology for International Development (BOSTID).  He now serves as
co-chairperson of the Council of Directors of Title VI National Resource
Centers, the coordinating organization for the more than 90 foreign language
and area studies centers in U.S. universities.  Recently, he was
co-chairperson of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, a national
organization seeking greater scholarly input into U.S. foreign policy.

His current research concerns environment and development in Durban (South
Africa), where he was a Fulbright-Hays Research Fellow in 1994-95 - and
socio-economic aspects of the ecological crisis of Lake Victoria.
Previously he worked on social stratification and religion in Zimbabwe and
Zambia; urbanization and housing in Zambia; scholars and U.S. foreign policy
toward Africa. 

He has also has served as:

o Vice-Chairperson, U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, chairing its
delegations to meetings of UNESCO and its European commissions for in Greece and Spain.

o Co-Chair of the Task Force on Elementary, Secondary, and Undergraduate
Education, of the National Council on Foreign Language and International Studies, 

o Chair of the Committee on World Sociology and Coordinator for African
Liaison of the American Sociological Association,

o Member and Africa Advisor of the White House Science and Technology
Mission to Africa (Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, and Zimbabwe) in 1980.

His publications include:  Southern Africa: Society, Economy and Liberation
(1980, with A. Isaacman),  Group Portrait: International Education in the
Academic Disciplines (1990, with S. Groennings),  The Third World: Africa
(1984, with M. Crofts),  Africa on Film and Videotape (1982),  African
Language Instruction in the United States: Directions and Priorities for the
1980s (1980, with D. Dwyer),  and Academic Analysis and U.S. Foreign
Policy-Making on Africa (1991, with M. Bratton and L. Bowman).  

Currently, he is the co-leader of the Program on the Lakes of East Africa,
which includes a major study of the human impacts on the freshwater
resources of Lakes Victoria and Malawi and the impacts of changes in those
resources on the human users and owners.  

The program is committed to developing better understandings of the lake
ecosystems, especially attending to the needs and interests of the human
users and owners of the lakes, including the development of sustainable uses
of these valuable and fragile resources and linking scientific information
with management for sustained human well-being.  

The Program also seeks truly collaborative relationships with African
colleagues in the governments, academic communities, villages and urban
places of the East African countries.  To that end, especial attention is
given to policy-relevant research conducted collaboratively with our African
colleagues and to depositing the findings and data first in the institutions
of the African nations who own and control these aquatic resources. 

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