RGS Director

Nadia Rabesahala Horning teaches courses that span various disciplines at Middlebury College. As a trained political scientist, she studies resource governance in Sub-Saharan Africa (The Politics of Deforestation in Africa, 2018), although she has also been investigating why some highly-skilled African professionals who trained abroad return to Africa, while others do not. From 2013 to 2019, Professor Horning directed Middlebury College’s African Studies Program and from 2016 to 2019 she was the faculty director for Middlebury’s Social Entrepreneurship Programs. She also advised UMOJA, Middlebury’s African students’ organization, for over ten years. A recipient of fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, Fulbright-Hayes, and the World Wildlife Fund, she holds a BA and MA from George Mason University (International Studies and International Transactions, respectively), and an MA and PhD from Cornell University (Comparative Politics). Educated on three continents, Professor Horning has taught at Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po Bordeaux—Les Afriques dans le Monde center) and the African Leadership University (Mauritius and Rwanda). A native of Madagascar, she is committed to training learners across geographic, cultural, disciplinary, and institutional borders.