Working here

These are demo listings. The roles below are samples written to show how this page works. They are not real vacancies, no applications are being reviewed, and nothing you send is stored by this site.

The Institute is small and distributed across Nigeria and the United States. Most work runs in programme cycles rather than sprints: a research season, a convening, a publication. Everyone writes, and everyone is expected to be able to explain their work to someone outside their field.

Roles are posted with their team, location and employment type up front. Salary bands are shared in the first conversation. Remote roles are genuinely remote, and on-site roles say so because the collection, the classroom or the partners are physically there.

Open roles

Six sample openings across research, programmes, collections and the platform.

Comparative Heritage Project

Research Fellow, Heritage & Security

Athens, Georgia — on-site · Full-time · 2-year term

Carry one of the Institute's flagship research programs, from fieldwork design through publication and briefing.

Responsibilities

  • Design and run a research program on religion, heritage and security in a West African field site.
  • Publish two peer-reviewed articles a year and contribute chapters to Institute volumes.
  • Translate findings into short briefs that universities, foundations and agencies can act on.
  • Supervise two graduate research assistants and review their drafts.

Requirements

  • PhD in religious studies, anthropology, history or a related field, or defended within six months of starting.
  • Fieldwork experience in Africa or the diaspora, with the language ability the site needs.
  • A publication record that shows you finish what you start.
  • Willingness to travel roughly eight weeks a year.

Institute Programs

Programs Manager, Convenings

Remote — Nigeria or United States · Full-time

Run the calendar of lecture tours, workshops and the annual convening so scholars arrive prepared and the budget holds.

Responsibilities

  • Plan and deliver six to eight convenings a year, including the annual Comparative Heritage gathering.
  • Hold the budget for each event and report variance monthly.
  • Coordinate visas, travel and honoraria for visiting scholars across several countries.
  • Keep speaker and partner records current in the CRM so follow-up does not depend on memory.

Requirements

  • Four or more years running events or academic programs end to end.
  • Comfort with budgets in more than one currency and with university procurement rules.
  • Clear written English and the patience for scheduling across WAT and ET.
  • Experience working with academic or nonprofit partners in Africa.

Teaching & Curriculum

Curriculum Designer, African Studies

Remote — United States · Contract · 12 months

Build course sequences and teaching materials that partner universities can adopt without rewriting them first.

Responsibilities

  • Draft syllabi, reading lists and assessment rubrics for undergraduate and graduate sequences.
  • Convert existing lecture material into modules that other instructors can teach.
  • Run review sessions with faculty at partner institutions and fold their notes back in.
  • Prepare each finished unit for the knowledge library with the metadata it needs.

Requirements

  • Graduate degree in African studies, religion, education or a near neighbour.
  • Two or more years designing higher-education curriculum, not only teaching it.
  • Working knowledge of accreditation and learning-outcome language.
  • Samples of syllabi or modules you wrote that someone else taught.

Collections

Digital Archivist, Knowledge Library

Ibadan, Nigeria — hybrid · Part-time · 20 hours a week

Describe, digitise and preserve the heritage material behind the public knowledge library.

Responsibilities

  • Catalogue papers, syllabi, photographs and audio to an agreed metadata standard.
  • Digitise fragile material and keep checksummed preservation copies.
  • Clear rights and record permissions before anything is published.
  • Answer research requests from scholars using the collection.

Requirements

  • Degree in library or information science, archival studies or equivalent practice.
  • Hands-on work with a metadata standard such as Dublin Core or EAD.
  • Care with provenance, sensitive material and community consent.
  • Yoruba or another Nigerian language is useful but not required.

Platform

Full-stack Engineer, Platform & Payments

Remote — four hours overlap with 09:00–17:00 ET · Full-time

Keep the public site, client portal, booking flow and bank payment integrations working and honest.

Responsibilities

  • Build features across the Next.js web app and the shared /api/v1 that the mobile app consumes.
  • Extend the payment gateway layer and its webhook verification and reconciliation paths.
  • Own the booking rules — availability, notice windows, payment holds and clash prevention.
  • Work the glitch-report queue and turn repeat reports into fixes and tests.

Requirements

  • Three or more years with TypeScript, React and a server-rendered framework.
  • Experience integrating a payment provider, including signed webhooks and reconciliation.
  • Relational data modelling and migrations you have run in production.
  • A habit of writing down what a system does before changing it.

Communications

Communications & Media Lead

Athens, Georgia — hybrid, two days on-site · Full-time

Make the Institute's research legible to journalists, funders and the people it is about.

Responsibilities

  • Write and edit essays, briefs and release copy for the public site.
  • Handle press inquiries and prepare researchers for interviews.
  • Run the media archive and keep interviews, video and press current.
  • Report on what the work reaches, with numbers rather than adjectives.

Requirements

  • Five or more years in communications for a research, cultural or academic organisation.
  • Editing samples that show you can cut an academic paragraph in half without losing it.
  • Experience placing stories with national or international outlets.
  • Sound judgement about sensitive material and about what should not be published.

How to apply

Each role opens an email to [email protected] with the role name in the subject line. Send a CV and a short note about the work — a paragraph is enough. There is no form and no applicant portal.

Again: these listings are demonstration content. If you are looking for a real conversation, use the contact page instead.