Tukufu Zuberi

Tukufu Zuberi was born on April 26, 1959 in Oakland, California. He is one of the stars in the PBS program "History Detectives". He is also Director of the Center for Africana Studies, Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations, and Professor and Chair of the Sociology department at the University of Pennsylvania.

Biography

Born Antonio McDaniel and raised in the housing projects of Oakland, CA, in the 1970s he embraced the name Tukufu Zuberi, Swahili for 'beyond praise' and 'strength'. “I took the name because of a desire to make and have a connection with an important period where people were challenging what it means to be a human being,” Zuberi says. [Barb Karg 2008, "The History Detectives: Explore Lincoln's Letter, Parker's Sax and Mark Twain's Watch"John Wiley and sons, Inc., page xv]

Dr. Tukufu Zuberi is a Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. from San Jose State in 1981, his M.A. from Cal State Sacramento in 1985, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1989.

At the University of Pennsylvania since 1988, he has served as chair of the Graduate Group in Demography (1995-1998), and as Director of African Studies (1999-2000). He has also been a visiting professor at Mekerere University in Kampala, Uganda and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

ACAP

Professor Zuberi has spearheaded several major research projects including the African Census Analysis Project (ACAP). In recognition of the need to preserve African census data in order to avoid perpetual loss due to poor storage and also the need to encourage and enhance further analysis, dissemination, and utilization of the massive census data, ACAP was undertaken as a joint initiative of the Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania and African research and governmental institutions. This was to allow for collaboration with various African governments and research institutions at archiving and analyzing African census data, both at national and sub-national levels, in order to inform appropriate policy interventions on the continent.

Publications

He has written two books, co-edited five volumes, and more than 50 scholarly articles. He has done profound work in the fields of social statistics and population studies (demography). Zuberi has appeared in several documentaries on Africa and the African Diaspora including Liberia: America's Stepchild (2002), and 500 Years Later (2005).

Books

*Tukufu Zuberi. "Thicker Than Blood: An Essay on how Racial Statistics Lie" (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). Honorable Mention for the 2002 Gustavus Myers Book Award.
*Antonio McDaniel. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Mortality Cost of Colonizing Liberia in the Nineteenth-Century" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)

Edited Volumes

*Tukufu Zuberi and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (editors). "White Logic, White Methods: Race and Methodology" (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., forthcoming 2008)
*Tukufu Zuberi, Amson Sibanda and Eric Udjo (editors). "The Demography of South Africa" Volume 1 of the General Demography of Africa series, General Editor Tukufu Zuberi (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2005).

Edited Journal Volumes

*Tukufu Zuberi and Gale Garrison (Guest editors) Back to the Future of Civilization: Celebrating 30 Years of African American Studies. "Special Issue of Journal of Black Studies" 2004, Vol. 35, Number 2
*Tukufu Zuberi (Guest editor), Racial Statistics and Public Policy. "Special issue of Race and Society" 2003 (mistakenly listed as 2001 on volume cover), Volume 4, Issue 2 (132 pages)
*Laura Chrisman, Farah Griffin and Tukufu Zuberi (Guest editors) Transcending Traditions: African, African Diaspora, and African American Studies in the 21st Century "Special issue of Black Scholar" 2000, Vol. 30, No. 3-4 (80 pages).
*Elijah Anderson and Tukufu Zuberi (Guest editors) The Study of African American Problems: Papers In Honor Of W.E.B. Du Bois. "Special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science" 2000, vol. 568 (316 pages)

External links

* [http://www.tukufuzuberi.com Official site]
* [http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/soc/People/zuberitukufu.html Sociology site]
* [http://www.acap.upenn.edu/ African Census Analysis site]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1422307/ IMDB Profile]
* [http://www.sas.upenn.edu/africana/ Center for Africana Studies site]
* [http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/about/tukufu.html History Detective site]