Ghanaian-American professor named among WEF’s 2026 Young Global Leaders

Ghanaian-American professor, Sally Afia Nuamah, has been named as one of 118 Young Global Leaders for 2026 by the World Economic Forum (WEF), earning international recognition for her work in academia and public policy.

Nuamah, an associate professor of Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University in the United States of America (USA), will participate in a three-year leadership programme designed to promote collaboration, executive learning and the exchange of ideas among emerging global leaders.

She is also the founder of the TWII Foundation, which supports girls in Ghana to be the first in their families to go to college.

Her selection comes in the same year she was named a resident of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2026 Bellagio Center Residency in Italy.

According to Northwestern University, the 26-day residency will give Nuamah time to develop a research project examining African cultural production, sovereignty and partisanship. She will join scholars, artists, policymakers and other professionals from different parts of the world.

Nuamah’s academic work examines how race, gender and public policy shape people’s lives, with particular attention to education policy and political participation in the United States, Ghana and South Africa.

From 90-Day Visa Pressure to Inventor: How 23-year-old Ghanaian developed Makoma bracelet

Nuamah completed her doctorate in political science at Northwestern University in 2016. She previously worked as an assistant professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and as a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University.

Her selection places her among a new cohort of academics, entrepreneurs, public officials and other professionals chosen by the WEF to help shape the future through immersive learning, global convenings and deep peer exchange.

The Forum’s Young Global Leaders programme was established in 2004 and brings together emerging leaders for a three-year development journey involving executive education, peer exchange and cross-sector collaboration.

JKB/VPO

THE LOWDOWN: GES PRO Speaks on SHS Placement Crisis and Teachers’ Strike

91746349