Kehinde Ilegbusi
Kehinde Ilegbusi is a PhD student in the World History program at Northeastern University, where he works at the intersection of intellectual history, legal history, new international history, and digital public humanities. His research traces the global entanglements of African states and societies with the United States and the wider world across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At the center of his dissertation is the Ogoni people of Nigeria — an Atlantic community whose experience became entangled with the ideas and visions of the European oil giant Shell and the politics of post-independence Nigeria. The dissertation straddles the fields of West African, Atlantic, empire, law, militarism, environmental, public, and memory studies. His work builds on the intellectual traditions he has engaged, and he remains grateful for the genuine gifts of those who have become ancestors, for every adviser whose mentorship continues to shape his path, and for the colleagues who have created space for collaboration. He serves as a Doctoral Research Assistant with the Reckoning Project, working with Uta Poiger. He also works with Kris Manjapra and Margaret Burnham on the Donated Body/Dignity for the Disappeared Ancestors project. Outside his research, he belongs to Stories of Home (SOH), a Lagos-based nonprofit that uses storytelling, hope traditions, and community learning to plant seeds of healing and possibility across Africa. As a Hope Ambassador, he carries that same conviction into everything he does: that hope, honestly pursued and generously shared, can make the world better.
Originally from southwestern Nigeria, he graduated with first-class honors in History and Strategic Studies from the University of Lagos in 2021 and completed a master’s degree in World History at Northeastern University in 2025, summa cum laude.