The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana has a new team of directors. Reflecting the German-Ghanaian collaborative endeavor of this institute, MIASA is always directed by a dual leadership of one director “Ghana”, nominated by the University of Ghana, and one director “Germany” from one of MIASA’s four German partners (University of Freiburg, University of Frankfurt, German Institute for Global and Area Studies as well as German Historical Institute Paris).

In September 2021, Prof. Charlotte Wrigley-Asante was appointed as new director “Ghana”. She is associate professor of geography and human resources at the University of Ghana. Before her appointment as director to MIASA she served as director for the Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA). After graduating from the University of Oslo, she obtained her PhD at the University of Ghana. She has published widely on gender, migration, urban livelihood, trans-border trade, climate change and energy issues.

Charlotte Wrigley-Asante has joined Dr. Susann Baller, who already took up her position as director “Germany” at MIASA in January 2021. Susann Baller is a senior researcher at the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP). Before coming to Ghana, she directed a research programme in Dakar. She holds a PhD in African history from Berlin. She has held positions as lecturer and research fellow in Berlin, Basel, Paris and Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on youth, urban and sports history as well as on the decolonization period in West Africa.

Susann Baller and Charlotte Wrigley-Asante are taking over from Prof. Abena Oduro (University of Ghana) and Prof. Gordon Crawford (Coventry University/University of Freiburg) in MIASA’s dual directorship. Abena Oduro and Gordon Crawford had the important and at times challenging task to build up MIASA as a new institute. MIASA was implemented in 2018 as the fourth institute of the College of Humanities at the University of Ghana, while its academic activities have from its beginnings been funded through the Maria Sybilla Merian programmes of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research via MIASA’s German partners.