Leonardo A. Villalón is Professor of Political Science and African Studies and founder and coordinator of the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida. He has held several administrative posts at the university, including Dean of the International Center and Associate Provost (2014-2022), and Director of the Center for African Studies (2002-2011). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, a D.E.A. from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris, an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A. from Louisiana State University.
Villalón is interested broadly in the social and political dynamics shaping the future of the countries of the Sahel (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad), and in understanding the sources of both vulnerability and resilience in the region. He has carried out research on a variety of topics, including Islam and politics, democratization, religion and educational reform, social change and institutional reform, electoral dynamics, conflict, and the impact of climate change in the region. Villalón is editor of the recent Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel (2021). He is the author of Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal (Cambridge University Press) and co-editor of Democratic Struggle, Institutional Reform, and State Resilience in the African Sahel (Lexington Books); Entre le Savoir et le Culte: Activisme et mouvements religieux dans les universités du Sahel (Amalion); The Fate of Africa’s Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions. (Indiana University Press); The African State at a Critical Juncture: Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration (Lynne Rienner publishers), and the journal issue “Economie morale et mutations de l’islam en Afrique subsaharienne” (Afrique Contemporaine 231), as well as of many other articles and book chapters on politics and religion in West Africa.
Villalón’s research has been supported from multiple sources. He was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for research on a project entitled: “Negotiating Democracy in Muslim Contexts: Political Liberalization and Religious Mobilization in the West African Sahel.” In collaboration with Mahaman Tidjani Alou of LASDEL, Niger, he directed a two year project analyzing religion and educational reform in the Sahel funded by the UK Department for International Development (DfID). He also codirected the “Trans-Saharan Elections Project,” (TSEP) funded by the US Department of State and involving exchanges on electoral issues between the US and the six Sahelian countries. He is editor of the TSEP website, providing information on electoral issues in the Sahel. From 2012-2016 Villalón directed a large research project funded by the Minerva Initiative on “Political Reform, Socio-Religious Change, and Stability in the African Sahel.” He also directed related Minerva research projects on religious student movements on Sahelian university campuses, as well as on the concept of laïcité (secularism) in the Sahel. He initiated and helps to coordinate an ongoing collaboration between the UF Sahel Research Group and the Sahel and West Africa Club of the OECD.
Villalón is currently principle investigator and director of a new Minerva Initiative Grant (2022-25) on “Social & Institutional Determinants of Vulnerability & Resilience to Climate Hazards in the Sahel.” The project seeks to understand how the hazards, risks—and at times the opportunities—of climate change are perceived and understood by social actors at various scales. The research will explore how the behaviors and choices that shape the degree of resilience or vulnerability are mediated by local understandings of hazards, and of the resources and institutions available to manage risk at each level.
Villalón taught for two years as a Fulbright senior scholar at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal. He has also taught at the Université Gaston Berger in St. Louis, Senegal, and has lectured and directed seminars and workshops at universities and other institutions in numerous West African countries. Villalón has served as president (2001-05) of the West African Research Association (WARA), the only sub-Saharan African member institution of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC). He is a member of the CAORC Board of Directors, for which he served as Chair from 2017 to 2023. Villalón was co-editor of the Journal of Modern African Studies from 2012-2017, is an editor for the the Cambridge University Press African Studies Series, and, and serves on numerous other editorial and advisory boards. Bilingual in English and Spanish, Villalón also speaks fluent French and Wolof, as well as rusty Italian and basic Arabic.