Join us for the first architecture lecture of the Spring 2022 semester.
Emily Williamson Ibrahim is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Boston University. Her current research focuses on a cryptic form of communication called "folded speech" in Hausa that offer a lens through which to understand how people manage anxieties about living with uncertainty among “zongos” (the name used to describe predominantly Muslim urban settlements in Ghana, West Africa). Emily holds a Master of Science in Architectural Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Virginia (UVA), and an undergraduate degree in Art History from Colby College. Emily has worked as an architect in Washington, DC, collaborated on cultural heritage projects in Ghana, Peru, and Haiti, has taught at Landscape Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, and is a co-founder of the nonprofit organization called the "Zongo Story Project" (www.zongostoryproject.com) in which she works with students in Ghana to write, illustrate, and tell stories that are meaningful to them. In 2016, their book “Gizo-Gizo: A Tale from the Zongo Lagoon” won the African Studies Association’s Africana Book Award for the best children’s book.