Regine Jackson

President

Dr. Regine O. Jackson currently serves as the Dean of the Humanities, Social Sciences, Media, and Arts Division and Professor of Sociology at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. A member since 1999, Jackson has led several HSA committees –  such as the 37th Annual Conference Program Committee, the 35th Annual Conference Site Committee (2023), 33th Annual Conference Program Committee (2021), the HSA Biennial Book Prize in 2017, HSA Board Secretary from 2014 – 2016. She was also the 2022 President of HSA.

Jackson specializes in Haitian migration and diaspora studies, sociology of race and place, and spatial inequality. She is the editor of Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora (Routledge, 2011) and The Context of Black Lives: Race and Space in Two American Cities; and author of Boston Haitians: Navigating Race, Place and Belonging in a Majority-Minority City. Other work has been published in interdisciplinary journals and edited volumes. She has received grants and awards from the American Sociological Association, Social Science Research Council, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Ford Foundation, Spencer Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. Before joining the leadership team in Academic Affairs at Morehouse, she taught at Agnes Scott College, Emory University, and the University of Richmond.

Regine was born in Brooklyn, New York, but was raised in the Boston Haitian community in the late 1970s and 1980s. She is a proud mother of three who currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dasha Chapman

Secretary

Dasha A. Chapman is an interdisciplinary dancer-scholar whose research, teaching, curation, and performances interweave a nexus of Haitian, Caribbean, and Black studies, critical dance and performance studies, ethnography, queer/gender studies, and embodied practice. Dasha’s current monograph, Grounding Practice: Dancing Haiti on Tè Glise, is a multi-sited ethnography that follows the artistry of six Haitian dance pedagogues to show how their teaching and learning of Haitian dance became a powerful counter-hegemonic placemaking practice after the 2010 earthquake. Her solo and co-authored writing has been published in Americas: a Hemispheric Music Journal, The Black Scholar, The Dancer-Citizen, Dance Chronicle, Journal of Haitian Studies, KALFOU: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies, Performance Matters, Radical Teacher, Theatre Journal, and Women & Performance. Currently she is co-editing with Mamyrah Dougé-Prosper and Mario LaMothe a special issue of the Journal of Haitian Studies on “The Rights to Live Creatively,” forthcoming 2025. Dasha’s artistic work is collaborative and place-based. Since 2015, she has devised multidisciplinary performances with Haitian and American artists to activate hxstories, places, and dis/orientations. She also co-convenes three transdisciplinary initiatives: the Haitian Studies Association’s Sexualities Working Group, Afro-Feminist Performance Routes, and Un/Commoning Pedagogies Collective. Dasha received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies and an M.A. in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University. Currently, she is Ella Baker Visiting Assistant Professor of Black Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. She previously held positions at Duke University, Hampshire College/Five Colleges, Davidson College, and Kennesaw State University.

Alexandra Cenatus

Board Member

Alexandra Cenatus, Director of Programs at Maryland Humanities, works to make the humanities accessible and engaging for diverse audiences. In her research, she examines Haiti’s social changes and their impact on Haitian Vodou practices, as well as other aspects of Haitian culture. Cenatus and her collaborators (Margarita Vargas-Betancourt and Ivanna Moreno) produced the Haitian American Dream Timeline in 2021, a digital humanities project aimed at highlighting Haitian immigration to the United States. Cenatus extends her research and programming skills to various communities by advocating for language access and serving as a board member of the Haitian Studies Association (HSA), WeaveTales, and the Washington State Coalition for Language Access (WASCLA).

Darlène Dubuisson

Board Member

Darlène Dubuisson is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests and teaching span political and legal anthropology, activist and engaged anthropology, Black feminist anthropology, Black intellectual histories, migration and transnational studies, and speculative fiction and visual culture.

Her work combines analyses of Black radicalism, feminism, social and political movements, imagination, migration and diaspora, and crises and futures. Her primary geographic focus is Haiti, the wider Caribbean and Latin American region.

Crystal Eddins

Board Member

Crystal Eddins is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh and holds a Dual Major PhD in African American & African Studies and Sociology from Michigan State University. Her areas of research and teaching include the African Diaspora, Social Movements and Revolutions, Race and Ethnicity, Women and Gender, and Atlantic World slavery. Her book, Rituals, Runaways, and the Haitian Revolution (2021), is an interdisciplinary case study that explores the relationship between ritual life, collective consciousness, and marronnage before the Haitian Revolution. Eddins has published other research articles in the Journal of Haitian Studies, Gender & History, the Journal of World- Systems Research, and Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change. She is currently developing a second project tentatively titled Black Queens of the Atlantic World, exploring enslaved women’s power, reproduction, and resistance in eighteenth-century British and French Caribbean colonies.

Jessica Hsu

Board Member

Jessica Hsu is based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti where her current research and advocacy work has been focused on shifting the development and humanitarian aid apparatus to put power in the hands of communities. Her recent research and advocacy is based on her long-standing relationships from Abricots to Cite Soleil and their experiences with NGOs increased by Hurricane Matthew and the presence of armed groups.

She was a part of a collective writing process that created “The Guide to the Humanitarian System, Development Aid, and NGOs” (http://gid.fokal.org) in partnership with social leaders, institutions, academics, and practitioners as a popular education tool. Other research includes, ‘Localization” Views from Haiti” (https://fic.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/Localization-Haiti-Final.pdf) and co-written ‘Humanitarian aid and local power structures: lessons from Haiti’s ‘shadow’ disaster’ (http://www.anthropolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Hsu-and-Schuller-Lessons-from-Haitis-Shadow-Disaster.pdf).

In addition, she is currently an Advocacy, Research and Learning for Roots of Development who is supporting and advocating for community-led development. She is also an advisor to Gwoup Konbit, a movement born out of Cite Soleil as a reminder of collective strength through histories of solidarity economies/mutual aid, who is currently writing a guide on community development based on the principles and values of konbit.

Felix Jean-Louis

Board Member

Felix Jean-Louis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of California at Irvine. He is a historian of Haiti by birth and in training. He also studies the African diaspora, Caribbean, African American, and Afro-Francophone histories. His research connects Haiti and Haitian to the larger currents of the African Diaspora. He is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled Exporting the Revolution: Haitian Internationalism in the Age of Global Blackness, 1890-1944 that explores the role Haitian elites played in the various organizations and programs that defined the notion of the African Diaspora. In it, he describes the Haitian elite males as central figures that espoused the notion that unity makes strength and urged moments across the Atlantic toward solidarity in the face of the divisions that threatened to divide the larger group.

Walner Osna

Board Member

Walner Osna est candidat au doctorat en sociologie et professeur à temps partiel à l’université d’Ottawa. Il y enseigne sociologie de l’alimentation, changements et conflits sociaux, méthodologie qualitative, raisonnement sociologique, sciences sociales et recherches, mondialisation et environnement ainsi que sociologie du racisme et de l’antiracisme. Il est co-fondateur du Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire et de valorisation des savoirs sur Haïti (CRIVASH). S’inscrivant dans une perspective décoloniale, ses recherches portent sur la souveraineté alimentaire, l’accaparement des terres, les mégaprojets, le tourisme et les mouvements paysans en Haïti. Il réfléchit aussi sur la décolonialité dans l’ambition de contribuer à une théorisation décoloniale haïtienne ancrée dans les idéaux de la Révolution haïtienne. De concert à d’autres chercheurs Canadiens et Haïtiens, il a mené une recherche sur la souveraineté alimentaire en Haïti aboutissant à diverses publications dont des articles, un outil d’évaluation de la souveraineté alimentaire en Haïti et un rapport d’enquête sur Massabielle (Haïti). Ses thématiques de recherche sont intimement liées à ses préoccupation et engagement militants.

Katherine Steelman

Board Member

Dr. Katherine Steelman is a professor of Ethnic Studies at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, CA. Her scholarship examines the intersections of race, sexuality, and empire across the Americas and the Caribbean. Her dissertation, Fronteras Rebeldes / Fwontyè Rebèl: Haitian Blackness in the Borderlands, analyzed how imperialism and racialized sexuality have shaped cultural representations of Haiti and Tijuana from the early 20th century to the present. Drawing on comics, media, and performance from Haiti, the U.S., and Mexico, her work brings together Critical Refugee Studies, Media Studies, and Black Diaspora Studies through a queer of color lens. She is beginning a new collaborative project on Haitian poet and radio host Richard Brisson, her grandfather’s first cousin.

Claudine Michel

Executive Director

Claudine Michel served for many years as Director of the Center for Black Studies Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is currently Professor of Black Studies and Assistant Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs. She received a BA in education from the École Normale Supérieure; studied at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, Université d’État d’Haïti; and earned a PhD in international education from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research has appeared in many scholarly venues and she is the author and co-editor of a number of volumes on education, Black studies, and Haitian Vodou. Her current work re-conceptualizes alternative modes of knowledge production and models of pedagogical interventions grounded in both education and religion. She is a former president of the Haitian Studies Association and the long-time editor of the only peer-reviewed journal on Haiti, The Journal of Haitian Studies, published by the UCSB Center for Black Studies Research for the Haitian Studies Association. Dr. Michel is founding member of KOSANBA, A Scholarly Association for the Studies of Haitian Vodou and Culture and a founding editor of Kalfou, A Journal of Comparative Ethnic and Relational Studies, both housed at the UCSB Center for Black Studies Research. After the 2010 earthquake, she served as consultant for Direct Relief International on its Haiti community projects and is a member of the Haiti Soleil Board of Directors. Recent awards include an excellence and service award from the Haitian Studies Association and the prestigious Jean-Price Mars Medal from the Faculté d’Ethnologie, Université d’État d’Haïti.

Irene Brisson

Project Manager

Irene Brisson, Professor of Practice at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture and Community Planning, is a scholar of built environment  whose research, teaching, and practice center historically marginalized building cultures and designers in Haiti and the African diaspora within a radically expanded field of global architectural history. Their first book project, Kreyòl Architecture: Designing Haitian Dwellings, is based on their extended ethnographic research with architects, bòsmason, non-governmental organizations, and residents engaged in housebuilding in Leyogàn, Haiti. Dr. Brisson is a co-director of the Caribbean Spatial Justice Lab which works to support a network of transdisciplinary and transnational design researchers committed to addressing escalating inequality and climate vulnerability in the greater Caribbean region and its diasporas. Their research has been supported by a Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in Art History, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the US Department of Education Fulbright-Hays program, the Institute for the Humanities and the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan, and a Carter Manny Dissertation Writing Award from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Irene co-edited Ground Rules for Humanitarian Design (2015) and has been published in MIT’s Thresholds and the CCA’s On Migration series.

Marc Prou

Past Executive Director

Marc Prou, associate professor and former chair of the Africana Studies Department, is currently the director of the Haitian Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His teaching and research address New World slaves societies, Caribbean social and cultural history, Caribbean literatures, Urban Education and Kreyòl linguistics. Through his interdisciplinary pedagogy, he has developed and led various study abroad programs to Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba. The author of numerous books, and peer-reviewed articles, essay reviews, and book chapters, including Introduction to Africana Studies: Multidisciplinary Perspectives of the African Experience (2013); “Haiti’s Condemnation: History and Culture at the Crossroads,” in Latin American Research Review (2005); “Attempts at Reforms: Mending the Tapestry of Haiti’s Education System, 1979-2004” in Journal of Haitian Studies (2009). Professor Marc Prou is a prominent Haitianist scholar activist and a keen public intellectual. He has cast a wide net of influence across generations with a variety of publications, combined with frequent public appearances in both academic and non academic circles, advancing Haitian history, language and cultural studies. Professor Prou is a co-founder of the Haitian Studies Association (HSA), he continues to relentlessly push the envelope of Haitian Studies in the academic canon.

April Mayes

2025

Cécile Accilien

2023-2024

Regine Jackson

2022

Mark Schuller

2020-2021

Florence Sergile

2019

Josiane Hudicourt Barnes

2018

Carolle Charles

2017

LeGrace Benson

2016

Patrick Bellegarde-Smith

2015

François Pierre-Louis

2014

Claudine Michel

2013

Charlene Désir

2012

Matthew Smith

2011

Guerda Nicolas

2009-2010

Guitèle Nicoleau

2008

Florence Bellande-Robertson

2007

Marie José N’Zengou-Tayo

2005-2006

Kathleen M. Balutansky

2000-2003

Carole M. Berotte Joseph

1997-2000

Leslie Desmangles

1990-1996

Cecile Accilien

LeGrace Benson

Carole M. Berotte Joseph

Patrick Bellegarde-Smith

Julie Carlson

Nikita Carney

Regine O Jackson

Claudine Michel

Brian Averill

Marlene Daut

Micheline Rice-Maximin

Mark Schuller

Alyssa Sepinwall

Chelsea Stieber

Robert Fatton

François Pierre-Louis

Carole M. Berotte Joseph

Claudine Michel

Micheline Rice-Maximin

Patrick Bellegarde-Smith

Cecile Accilien

Mark Schuller

LeGrace G Benson

Carolle Charles

Jean-Marie Mayas

Robert Fatton

LeGrace Benson

Claudine Michel & Douglas Daniels

Cécile Accilien

Alessandra Benedicty

Micheline Rice-Maximin

Mark Schuller