Michael Abbott – Academy Founder/Director
A classroom teacher for over 12 years in Washington D.C., New York City, and Dakar, Senegal, Michael attended the University of Virginia and graduated with a BA in African and African American Studies and History. In 2001 he was accepted as a National Endowment of the Humanities Teaching Fellow and wrote an integrated curriculum on the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade for Prince Georges County Public Schools in Maryland. He subsequently recorded and released a successful spoken word piece entitled Dream Birth and toured throughout Europe and North America performing. From 2003 to 2007 Michael served as an integral part of the administrative and pedagogic staff for one of Dakar’s premier bilingual private high schools. In July of 2006 Michael escorted a group of Senegalese students to South Africa for the Summer Leadership Academy in Cape Town. In July 2007, he inaugurated and successfully directed the Summer Academy of West Africa with over thirty five participants from the United States and Africa. He presently resides in Dakar with his wife and three children.

Karima Grant Abbott – Lead Trainer
Author and educator, Karima Grant Abbott is a teacher, leadership trainer, and educational consultant. After attending Mount Holyoke College, Karima began a ten year career working with and writing for children and young adult both in the U.S. and West Africa. Her 1996 children’s picture book, Sofie and the City was selected by Bank Street College as one of the best children’s books of 2006 and her 2007 collaboration with the British Council Dakar produced Senegal’s first interactive children’s exhibit. She is also featured in the young adult anthologies: What Your Mama Never Told You: True Stories About Sex and Love (Graphia/Houghton Mifflin, 2007), We Got Issues: A Young Woman’s Guide to a Bold, Courageous, and Empowered Life (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2006). Presently, Karima is one of two certified leadership trainers in Senegal for Inter-Action, a Pan-African leadership development program and facilitates leadership training workshops for youth and adult professionals throughout Africa.

Iba Ba – Community Service Coordinator
Distinguished faculty member at two of Senegal’s premier lycèes, Mr Iba Ba has served as an instructor and mentor to Senegalese youth for over fifteen years. Iba Ba has worked with local and international organizations (UNDP, UNESCO), and the Senegalese Ministry of Education in establishing private and public sponsorships of a wide number of youth educational initiatives, including leadership training, pregnancy and STD prevention programs, human rights awareness campaigns, and civic education. Iba Ba has also been fundamental in the establishment of rigorous civic education classes throughout Dakar and is the author of numerous pedagogical manuals on the teaching of history, geography, and civic education. A History and Geography teacher by profession, Mr Iba Ba has coordinated various youth service learning programs throughout Senegal. Presently, in addition to teaching innovative World History and Geography classes in Dakar, Iba Ba is an educational consultant for various initiatives for educational excellence.

Gabriel Boissy – History Coordinator
Author and historian, Gabriel Boissy offers more than twenty years experience as a teacher and instructor. A summa cum laude graduate of Senegal’s Ecole Normale Superior (National Teaching College), Gabriel Boissy has been a member of the National Committee that determines national baccalaureate exams. From 2000 to 2005 he authored and designed final exams for the technical baccalaureate. Additionally, Gabriel Boissy has written several texts on civic education, history, geography for grades seven, eight, nine, and ten in use throughout the Senegalese systems for middle and high schools. Currently a pedagogical consultant, Mr Boissy brings to the Summer Academy his introductory text on West African History.