Jomalee Smith serves as Director of Africa Studies, overseeing the program’s research on governance, displacement, education, and youth opportunity across the continent. She is a first-generation American with family roots in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Jomalee aspires to pursue a career in international arbitration, representing developing countries in arbitral cases. Her long-term goal is to help Sub-Saharan migrants in transit states navigate the societies around them.

Her academic and professional interests center on global advocacy and development in Africa and the Middle East. She previously served as a Foreign Policy Intern at the Brookings Institution, where she conducted research for the Foreign Policy program and helped develop outreach to HBCU communities.

During her academic career, she took graduate-level courses at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to strengthen her background in international affairs.

Jomalee is a graduating senior at Howard University, where she is double majoring in Political Science and Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in International Affairs.