Dr. Sanyu Mojola

Biography

Sanyu Mojola is the Maurice P. Professor of Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs. She directs the Office Population Research and has been an influential figure in her field. Sanyu earned her joint honors BA degree from Durham University, UK in 2000 and completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Chicago in 2008, where her dissertation won the Richard Saller Dissertation Prize. She has previously taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado Boulder, receiving recognition as Faculty Mentor of the Year by sociology graduate students and being a Gamm Teaching Fellow. Mojola's research primarily focuses on the intersections of health, illness, and socio-economic factors, particularly examining how gender, race, ethnicity, and aging shape health outcomes. Her work also investigates social processes within schools, labor markets, and communities that contribute to health inequality, with significant contributions to understanding the HIV/AIDS pandemic in various contexts including Kenya, the United States, and South Africa. Her book, 'Love, Money, and HIV: Becoming Modern African Women in the Age of AIDS', published by the University of California Press in 2014, received multiple accolades including the 2016 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award from the American Sociological Association. Currently, her research is focused on a NIH funded project exploring the HIV epidemic among middle-aged and older adults in rural South Africa, and she serves on editorial boards for several prominent journals.

Research Interests

Experience