Ph.D. student, 2021
Baba Adou is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Florida, specializing in Comparative Politics and International Relations with a regional focus on the African Sahel and the Maghreb. His dissertation offers a comparative historical analysis of Mali and Mauritania, examining how the threat of religiously motivated insurgencies reshapes state–society relations and fosters new forms of engagement between states and religion in the region.
At the University of Florida, Adou serves as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Global Islamic Studies and is affiliated with the Sahel Research Group. Since 2023, he has also worked as a Survey Data Analyst with Afrobarometer, producing policy research on African public opinion. His work has appeared in POMEPS Studies, Souffles Monde, and the Africa Yearbook, and he has contributed to projects with V-Dem, Freedom House, and the Bertelsmann Transformation Index. He also serves as a reviewer for the African Studies Quarterly.
Adou has taught African Politics as Instructor of Record at UF and served as a Teaching Assistant in Comparative Politics and related courses. He brings more than six years of prior teaching experience from the Higher Institute of English and the University of Nouakchott in Mauritania (2015–2021). He holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Nouakchott and an M.A. in Global and International Studies from the University of Kansas.