{"id":2,"date":"2012-09-04T13:39:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T17:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/template\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:03:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T13:03:43","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonardo A. Villal\u00f3n"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<section class=\"fullwidth-text-block\">\r\n\t<div class=\"container px-0 pt-5\">\r\n\t\t<div class=\"row align-items-start\">\r\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col-12\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-scaled.jpeg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-410\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-410\" src=\"http:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-414x531.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"359\" srcset=\"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-414x532.jpeg 414w, https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-234x300.jpeg 234w, https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-798x1024.jpeg 798w, https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-768x985.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-1197x1536.jpeg 1197w, https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-1596x2048.jpeg 1596w, https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-940x1206.jpeg 940w, https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-1440x1848.jpeg 1440w, https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/files\/IMG_2762-copy-scaled.jpeg 1995w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px\" \/><\/a>Leonardo A. Villal\u00f3n <\/strong>is Professor of Political Science and African Studies and founder and coordinator of the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida. He is a specialist on the countries of the African Sahel (Senegal, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Chad), where he has carried out research on the role of religion in politics, democratization, electoral issues, education, and political stability. His current research focuses on the impact of climate change in the highly vulnerable countries of the region. Villal\u00f3n holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, and degrees from the Institut d\u2019Etudes Politiques in Paris, the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University, and Louisiana State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Affiliations:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.africa.ufl.edu\/\">The Center for African Studies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/polisci.ufl.edu\/\">Department of Political Science<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/sahelresearch.africa.ufl.edu\/\">The Sahel Research Group<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/tsep.africa.ufl.edu\/\">The Trans-Saharan Elections Project (TSEP)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/globalislam.center.ufl.edu\/\">UF Center for Global Islamic Studies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wara\/\">The West African Research Association (WARA)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/caorc.org\/\">The Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oecd.org\/swac\/\">Sahel and West Africa Club of the OECD<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/series\/african-studies\/AB4FF0D3094511B59CFEFCCC124450A6\">Cambridge University Press African Studies Series<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contact Information:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Email: <a title=\"mailto:villalon@ufl.edu\" contenteditable=\"false\" href=\"mailto:villalon@ufl.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">villalon@ufl.edu<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Phone: (352) 273-1536<\/li>\n<li>Office: 109 Rolfs Hall<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\r\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1270,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/villalon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}