Jennifer Hart

Jennifer Hart is Professor and Department Chair in the Department of History at Virginia Tech's College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. She is a leading historian of mobility, technology, infrastructure, and urban space in colonial and postcolonial Ghana. Hart is currently also serving as a Senior Scholar in the Office of Curricular and Pedagogical Innovation at the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

Her research focuses on African urban history, the politics of infrastructure, and the social dimensions of transportation and technology. She has held leadership roles in major scholarly organizations, including as North American President of the International Society for the Scholarship on Teaching and Learning in History, a member of the Executive Council of the African Studies Association, and a member of the Africa Initiative Steering Committee for the Society for the History of Technology.

Her recent publications reveal a sustained engagement with themes such as urban governance, sanitation politics, labor, and the interplay between colonial power and everyday life in Accra. She bridges academic and public scholarship through digital projects and media contributions.

Notable awards include the Boahen-Wilks Prize for Best Journal Article and being a Finalist for the Herskovits Prize. Her work has appeared in Technology and Culture, Urban Forum, History in Africa, and International Review of Social History.

Hart is the director of Accra Wala, a community-generated spatial archive of urban life in Accra, and a collaborator on the Instagram-based project @thistrotrolife. She is an active mentor and public scholar, contributing to The Washington Post, The Conversation, Inside Higher Ed, and her blog www.ghanaonthego.com.

• Senior Scholar, American Association of Colleges & Universities
• Boahen-Wilks Prize for Best Journal Article
• Finalist, Herskovits Prize

She advises graduate students and is deeply involved in curricular innovation and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in higher education.