Nwando Achebe, is a Nigerian-American academic, academic administrator, feminist scholar and multi-award-winning historian. She is the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History and the Associate Dean for Access, Faculty Development, and Strategic Implementation in the College of Social Science at Michigan State University. She is also founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of West African History. 19th Century, 20th Century, Cultural, Political, Religious, Social, Women & Gender.
Nwando Achebe was born in Enugu, eastern Nigeria to Nigerian writer, essayist and poet, Chinua Achebe and Christie Chinwe Achebe, a professor of education. She is the spouse of Folu Ogundimu, professor of journalism at Michigan State University and mother of a daughter, Chino. Her older brother, Chidi Chike Achebe is a physician-executive.
Achebe received her Ph.D. in African History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2000. An oral historian by training, her areas of expertise are West African History, women, gender and sexuality histories. In 1996 and 1998, she served as a Ford Foundation and Fulbright-Hays Scholar-in-Residence at The Institute of African Studies and The Department of History and International Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Her first academic position was as an assistant professor of history at the College of William and Mary. She then moved to Michigan State University in 2005 as a tenured associate professor, Professor in 2010, and is presently the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor.
Nwando Achebe has received grants from the Wenner Gren Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Woodrow Wilson, Fulbright-Hays, Ford Foundation, the World Health Organization and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is also the recipient of three book awards.