Angela Carter, Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
Angela Carter is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies specializing in Psychological Science. Her research interests focus on the development of cultural meaning-making practices, psychohistory, Black intellectual genealogies, public history, and the socialization of racial and cultural identity. Before joining UMBC, Dr. Carter was a researcher at the Ronald W. Walters Leadership and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
As a double alumna of Howard University, she earned a B.S. in Psychology, a B.A. in Afro-American Studies, and a Ph.D. in Personality Psychology. Dr. Carter is a Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society member and recipient of the Winslow Sargeant Doctoral Award.
At UMBC, Professor Carter teaches introductory and psychological courses exploring the Black experience in the U.S.
Office: 536 Fine Arts Building
Contact: (410) 455-2926|acarter8@umbc.edu
Gloria Chuku, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies
Areas of Interest: African History, Gender, African Diaspora
Ph.D., University of Nigeria, Nsukka
Gloria I. Chuku is Professor of Africana Studies with a specialty in African History and the Department Chair. Her research interests focus on Igbo history and culture, gender studies, women in colonial and postcolonial political economies of Nigeria and Africa, ethnonationalisms and conflicts in Nigeria, and African nationalism and intellectual history. She is the author of Igbo Women and Economic Transformation in Southeastern Nigeria, 1900-1960 (Routledge, 2005), editor of The Igbo Intellectual Tradition: Creative Conflict in African and African Diasporic Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Ethnicities, Nationalities, and Cross-Cultural Representations in Africa and the Diaspora (Carolina Academic Press, 2015), and coeditor of Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War: Reframing Gender and Conflict in Africa (Lexington Books, 2020). Professor Chuku is the recipient of a number of distinguished awards, including the Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (2020) and the prestigious Ali Mazrui Award for Scholarship and Research Excellence (2017). She is a member of the International Advisory Board of Journal of Genocide Research, and the Editorial Boards of History in Africa, the Journal of Nigeria Studies, and Lagos Historical Review (University of Lagos, Nigeria), Taylor & Francis Book Series on “Global Africa,” and Lexington Books’ “African Governance & Development” Series. At UMBC, Dr. Chuku teaches courses in African history, contemporary Africa, West African history, Islam in Africa, African culture and development, and women in Africa and the Diaspora. She serves on the governing body of three departments/programs: Language, Literacy, and Culture PhD Program (LLC Steering Committee), Gender, Women’s + Sexuality Studies Department (GWST Coordinating Committee) and Global Studies Program (GLBL Coordinating Committee). She is also an Affiliate Professor of the LLC PhD Program and the GWST Department. State-wide, Dr. Chuku serves on the University System of Maryland Women’s Forum Executive Committee.
Office: 537 Fine Arts Building
Contact: (410) 455-2921 | chuku@umbc.edu
Tammy Henderson, Africana Studies Lecturer
Tammy Sanders Henderson, is a Senior Lecturer of Africana Studies with a specialty in Black Women’s Studies and public policy. Prior to joining the UMBC faculty in 2011, she was an instructor in African American Studies at the University of Maryland at College Park, and the Academic Program Coordinator for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History in Washington D.C. Dr. Henderson earned her Ph.D., from the University of Maryland at College Park in American Studies, along with a Certificate in Women’s Studies. She is the Co-author of Interrogating the Awkward Black Girl: Beyond Controlling Images of Black Women in Televised Comedies (2020) and Co-author of Answering the Call: A (Continued) Response to Sprague’s Call to Action for Instructional Communication Scholars and Beyond (2019).
She is an affiliate faculty with Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, a Graduate faculty member, First Year Experience faculty, and a teaching mentor for College Teaching and Learning Science Certificate Program (CTLS) at UMBC.
Her teaching and research interests include Maternity, Race, and Public Policy, Black Feminist Thought, Black Families, and Black Women: Cross-Cultural Perspectives.
Office: 539 Fine Arts Building
Contact: (410) 455-2928 l xu61256@umbc.edu
Thomas Robinson, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
Areas of Interest: Psychology, Research Methods
Before joining the department, Dr. Robinson was a statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics [1967-69], an Equal Employment Opportunity Counselor at the NIMH [1976-79], and a consultant to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [1977]. He was also a summer intern at the National Science Foundation [1971] and a postdoctoral fellow at the NIMH-Laboratory of Psychology and Psychopathology [1975-79].
Past recent interests centered on the efficacy of polygraph or lie detection measurement as well as psychophysiological [e.g., electrodermal and heart] responding as related to such variables as auditory and visual two-flash perceptual sensitivity, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, psychoticism, schizotypal personality, postural stress, direction of hand torque and hand preference, differential reaction times of personality groupings, and racial differences in electrodermal responding and non-responding. Behavioral responses associated with and psychometric properties of various personality measures [e.g., sensation seeking, introversion-extraversion, neuroticism, shyness, and state and trait anxiety] were also studied.
Current research interests center largely on two issues: romantic jealousy as influenced by gender and personality differences; and the evolutionary origins of implicit and explicit prejudicial attitudes. A book-length manuscript examining how evolutionary factors appear to influence the development of prejudicial attitudes is currently being written.
Courses taught in the department include: Psychology of Racism, Psychology of the Black Experience, Methodology and Research in Africana Studies, Research Design and Documentation, Research Proposal Fundamentals, Psychological Testing of American Minorities, Mental and Physical Health of Black Americans, and The Effects of Violence on Children in Inner-City Communities.
Contact: trobinso@umbc.edu