Afrobarometer Executive Director E. Gyimah-Boadi has been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, an honor recognizing “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research,” the academy announced Tuesday (30 April 2019).
Gyimah-Boadi, a social scientist and tireless champion of democracy, is one of two Africa-based scholars among the 25 foreign associates and 100 new members to be elected this year.
The National Academy of Sciences, a private, non-profit institution established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, recognizes achievement in science and provides policy advice to the U.S. government and other organizations.
Gyimah-Boadi co-founded Afrobarometer, the pan-African research network committed to “giving voice” to ordinary citizens, in 1999 and has helped build it into the continent’s leading public-opinion research institution. He is also co-founder and former executive director of the Center for Democratic Development (CDD) in his native Ghana.
A former professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Legon, he has held faculty positions at U.S. universities and fellowships at the Center for Democracy, Rule of Law and Development (Stanford University), the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the International Forum for Democratic Development. He is a fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Advisory Council of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, among others.
His many publications include the ground-breaking Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa, written with Afrobarometer co-founders Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes. His recent honors include the 2018 Distinguished Africanist award from the African Studies Association and the 2017 Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Peace and Social Justice.
