Binta Bajaha fights world hunger with her Arts & Science degree as a key spokesperson for the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP). As a senior advisor on gender, diversity, and environmental sustainability, she credits U of T for preparing her to impact lives through crucial decisions about food access. Each year, WFP helps 80 million people worldwide by providing emergency food and supporting underserved communities to enhance nutrition and strengthen resilience against climate change and political unrest. Bajaha, who completed her PhD from the Women & Gender Studies Institute (WGSI) in 2024, believes that despite changing foreign policies, most people remain decent and simply need chances to thrive - something her team works to offer daily.
Bajaha came from The Gambia in West Africa and earned Canadian degrees, beginning at only 15 years old at the London School of Economics & Political Science. Working as a consultant for WFP in Rome made her want to pursue a PhD. She picked U of T because of its excellent teachers and the Women & Gender Studies Institute. A presentation by Associate Professor Marieme Lo, who heads the African Studies Centre and later supervised her PhD, completely amazed her and drove her to learn more about both the professor and the school.
Bajaha took time away from WFP to write her dissertation, "Sahelian Realities of Climate Change: Interrogating Intersectional Vulnerabilities, Resilience, and Agency in a Senegambian Anthropocene." Her academic work earned her an SSHRC award that lasted from 2021 to 2024, plus the African Studies Senior Doctoral Fellowship for 2022-23. She led the WGSI Graduate Student Union as chair and received the WGSI Student Leadership Award in 2020 for her contributions to campus life.
Lo, who Bajaha calls her most important mentor, says Binta affected many people during her time at U of T through her amazing smarts, great grades, student mentoring, and community involvement. Lo believes Binta will create fresh ways to tackle food problems and climate issues in troubled areas and champion gender and climate fairness to change lives for the better. WGSI Director and Professor Alissa Trotz, who also works with the Centre for Caribbean Studies, sees Binta as a powerful leader at the institute and remembers how she put together an online conference for graduate students when the pandemic first hit.
Trotz praises Binta as a great showcase of the different roads graduates can take, noting how she brought vast global work knowledge to school and then returned to her career with renewed dedication and new ideas from her research. Having mentors who represent her background deeply shaped Bajaha's path, highlighting why diversity matters in higher education and how Black teachers can positively affect students of color. Bajaha points out she never learned from a Black teacher before U of T and says meeting someone who shared her appearance, thinking style, and speech patterns at the doctoral level proved crucial for her development.
Bajaha recognizes her lucky access to education and her position of influence, applying her outlook to guide WFP leaders toward better operational choices - beliefs partly formed through what she learned at U of T. Her special viewpoint comes from mixing classroom knowledge with real-life experiences. Born in Gambia, she later decided to become Canadian because she saw Canada as a place that matched her vision for an ideal world where everyone had fair chances. She firmly believes such conditions naturally lead to amazing results.
Bajaha came from The Gambia in West Africa and earned Canadian degrees, beginning at only 15 years old at the London School of Economics & Political Science. Working as a consultant for WFP in Rome made her want to pursue a PhD. She picked U of T because of its excellent teachers and the Women & Gender Studies Institute. A presentation by Associate Professor Marieme Lo, who heads the African Studies Centre and later supervised her PhD, completely amazed her and drove her to learn more about both the professor and the school.
Bajaha took time away from WFP to write her dissertation, "Sahelian Realities of Climate Change: Interrogating Intersectional Vulnerabilities, Resilience, and Agency in a Senegambian Anthropocene." Her academic work earned her an SSHRC award that lasted from 2021 to 2024, plus the African Studies Senior Doctoral Fellowship for 2022-23. She led the WGSI Graduate Student Union as chair and received the WGSI Student Leadership Award in 2020 for her contributions to campus life.
Lo, who Bajaha calls her most important mentor, says Binta affected many people during her time at U of T through her amazing smarts, great grades, student mentoring, and community involvement. Lo believes Binta will create fresh ways to tackle food problems and climate issues in troubled areas and champion gender and climate fairness to change lives for the better. WGSI Director and Professor Alissa Trotz, who also works with the Centre for Caribbean Studies, sees Binta as a powerful leader at the institute and remembers how she put together an online conference for graduate students when the pandemic first hit.
Trotz praises Binta as a great showcase of the different roads graduates can take, noting how she brought vast global work knowledge to school and then returned to her career with renewed dedication and new ideas from her research. Having mentors who represent her background deeply shaped Bajaha's path, highlighting why diversity matters in higher education and how Black teachers can positively affect students of color. Bajaha points out she never learned from a Black teacher before U of T and says meeting someone who shared her appearance, thinking style, and speech patterns at the doctoral level proved crucial for her development.
Bajaha recognizes her lucky access to education and her position of influence, applying her outlook to guide WFP leaders toward better operational choices - beliefs partly formed through what she learned at U of T. Her special viewpoint comes from mixing classroom knowledge with real-life experiences. Born in Gambia, she later decided to become Canadian because she saw Canada as a place that matched her vision for an ideal world where everyone had fair chances. She firmly believes such conditions naturally lead to amazing results.
