Email: benlaw@email.arizona.edu

Dr Benjamin N. Lawrance is the former Conable Chair in International Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology and is currently a professor of history at the University of Arizona.He has conducted field research in West Africa since 1997 and published extensively about political and social conditions. He has served as an expert witness in the asylum cases for over 130 West Africans in the US, Europe and Canada which have involved human trafficking, citizenship, statelessness, female genital cutting, gender issues, gender identity, ethnic and religious violence, and witchcraft accusations.

Tel: +1 401 46 72 857,  603-744-6484
Email:  RLobban@ric.edu

Dr Richard A Lobban is an anthropologist and early pioneer in social network modelling, archaeologist, Egyptologist, and Sudanist, foreign policy expert, human rights activist. He is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and African Studies at Rhode Island College, Providence, Rhode Island since 1972; also a lecturer at the Archaeological Institute of America and the Naval War College. He is an expert in Ancient Sudan and Ancient Egypt, with a particular focus on Nubia. Lobban has authored numerous books and publications such as the Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia, Historical Dictionary of Sudan (2002), and Social Networks in Urban Sudan (1973). He has also authored/co-authored books such as Historical dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau (1997), Cape Verde: Crioulo colony to independent nation (1995), Historical dictionary of Cape Verde (2007), and Middle Eastern women and the invisible economy (1998).