Miami Institute for the Social Sciences Expands Its Board with the Appointment of Marci Ovadia and Percy Hintzen

Note: The Miami Institute for the Social Sciences announces that it has appointed Percy C. Hintzen and Martha Cecilia (Marci) Ovadia to its Board of Directors, effective during the latest Board meeting in January 2024. This post provides some biographical information on our newest Board members.

Based in Miami, Percy C. Hintzen is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Professor in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. At Berkeley, he served as Director of the Center for African Studies, Co-Director of the Multi Campus Research Group on Africa, Chair of African American Studies, Director of Peace and Conflict Studies, and Acting Director of the Center for Race and Gender. His scholarship examines relationships among modernity, political economy, and the production of difference focused on the West Indies, Africa, and the United States.  He earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Political Sociology an M.Phil. in Political Sociology and an M.A. in Sociology all from Yale University, an M.A. in International Urbanization and Public Policy from Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts, and a B.Soc.Sc. in Sociology from the University of Guyana. His publications include The Costs of Regime Survival: Racial Mobilization, Elite Domination, and Control of the State in Guyana and Trinidad (Cambridge University  Press); West Indian in the West (New York University Press); Problematizing Blackness: Self Ethnographies by Black Immigrants to the United States  (Routledge); and Global Circuits of Blackness: Interrogating the African Diaspora (Univ. of Illinois Press) and over seventy articles in journals and chapters in edited volumes.  His recent book, Reproducing Domination: On the Caribbean Postcolonial State, was  published by the University of Mississippi Press in 2022.

Martha Cecilia Ovadia/Marci (she/her/ella), also based in South Florida, has worked for more than 15 years in service of the work of justice and liberation for all across multiple sectors, including: local government, economic development, academia, publishing and the philanthropic sector. She is known for her work in liberatory practices in racial equity, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy, organizational and academic decolonization, as well as her extensive portfolio of work in philanthropic equity-focused strategic communications, coaching and strategy. She is a prolific multi-medium storyteller, collaborative writer and a sought after academic and public speaker on intersectional justice, liberation theology, and pop-culture. Before taking on the work of CEO and Founder of La Libertad Consulting, Martha Cecilia was a director of Communications at both JustFund and the Equitable Evaluation Initiative.  Martha Cecilia is a Ph.D(c) and MA graduate of Claremont Graduate University, having worked on an interdisciplinary dual Doctorates in Religion, Ethics, Culture and English Literature . She has a MA in Religion, Ethics and Culture from Claremont Graduate University and a BA in Religious Studies and Art History from Florida State University. She is a 2020 Frank Karel Scholar, an honorary alumni of The Funders Network PLACES fellowship (2016) and a Miami Pinnacle Award Winner.