Margaux Day ’06

Margaux Day ’06

Margaux Day ’06, an alumni trustee at Wooster, is the policy director of Accountability Counsel, a non-profit organization that amplifies the voices of communities around the world to protect their human rights and environment. She leads the organization’s advocacy seeking to hold international financial institutions accountable for the negative environmental and human rights impacts of their investments. Before joining Accountability Counsel, Day was a judicial clerk for the Honorable Solomon Oliver Jr. ’69 of the Northern District of Ohio. She conducted anti-corruption and environmental investigations as an associate at the law firm Jones Day and continued to focus on corporate accountability as the deputy chief compliance officer of Diebold Nixdorf. Day then joined the Public International Law & Policy Group, where she advised parties engaged in peace negotiations and clients pursuing transitional justice. Day earned her degree at Wooster in international relations and completed her J.D. at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Courtney Thompson

Dr. Courtney L. Thompson, Department Chair and Associate Professor of Africana Studies, joined The College of Wooster in Fall 2022. She completed her PhD in American Studies at Purdue University and her BA in English at Hampton University. Before joining the College of Wooster, she was an Associate Professor of American Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at The University of the South, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Hamilton College and Dickinson College, and a Visiting Scholar and Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of Houston. Her interdisciplinary training and research draw together the fields of Black (Women’s) Studies, American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Literary Studies. Her writing has been published in Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International; Women, Gender, and Families of Color; Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, Feminist Media Studies; and the International Journal of Africana Studies. She is a proud UNCF/Mellon (Mays Undergraduate) Fellow and alum of the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers.

Peter deSouza head shot

Peter deSouza

Peter deSouza is the former director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, India. He is currently a senior research associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (ACEPS) at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. His research interests include exploring conundrums of democracy in India and South Asia, as well as the ‘colonization of the mind’ by the knowledge and governmental practices of the West, both in its colonial history and its after life. He also has a continued interest in the developments of science and technology, especially those that raise ethical questions and have significant societal impacts. Prior to his time at the ACEPS, de Souza served as the D.D. Kosambi Visiting Professor at Goa University from 2020 to 2022, where he had previously served as a professor and head of the Department of Political Science. He also served as co-director and senior fellow of the Lokniti Programme of Comparative Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi followed by two terms as director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study. Here, he developed the Tagore Centre and the International Centre forHuman Development. de Souza has continuously been engaged in issues of the freedom of expression, focusing on the case of the artist M.F. Husain, as well as the affirmative action policies of India and the U.S. and on the place of the university in the global South. de Souza has also served as a consultant to a variety of notable organizations, including UNESCO, International IDEA, the United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank, among others. He has published several journal articles and book chapters, including essays in the Economic and Political Weekly and The Indian Forum, and writes opinion pieces for publications such as The Indian Express, The Hindu, Scroll, and Goa Herald.