Dr. Tonija Hope is the director of the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University (HU). In this capacity, Dr. Hope oversees the Center’s strategic vision, as well as its wide-ranging international engagements including study abroad, international partnership development, global programming, and the management of the Patricia Roberts Harris Fellowship for HU students. She also supports several flagship fellowship programs for the U.S. Department of State, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which are aimed at cultivating pipelines for diverse talent in foreign affairs careers.

Dr. Hope worked for several NGOs including Phelps Stokes, where she oversaw a variety of projects focusing on youth leadership development in Afro-descendant communities in Latin America, and the Baoba Fund for Racial Equity, a Brazil-based non-profit, focused on supporting Afro-Brazilian civil society organizations, where she led North American engagement.

Dr. Hope is active in a variety of initiatives to promote racial equity throughout the African Diaspora. She is a member of the US Civil Society Committee for the Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination (JAPER) and Chair of the US Civil Society Committee for the US-Colombia Action Plan to Promote Racial and Ethnic Equality (CAPREE).

She has been active in promoting the UN Decade for People of African Descent through her work at the RBC. Dr. Hope is a native Washingtonian, and the proud daughter of a Liberian mother and an African American father and has two children.

She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Macalester College, a master’s degree in tourism administration with a focus on international education from George Washington University and a PhD from Howard University in higher education leadership.

Hope was an event speaker at the Dialogue.