Esi Sutherland-Addy is retired associate professor of African Studies at the University of Ghana and Adjunct Professor at the New York University Study Centre in Accra. She has been visiting lecturer at Manchester University, University of Indiana (Bloomington) as well as Birmingham University. She has also taught at L’Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Sutherland was Academic Associate Director of the African Humanities Program of the American Council for Learned Societies.

Research: Her main research interests are: written and oral Literature, women’s literature as well as educational and cultural policy. Her current research projects are a) Oral Traditions and Expressive Diversity involving the collection and digitization of Ghanaian Oral Traditions and b) Archiving the works and papers of Efua Sutherland. She is also oversees the Willis Bell Photographic Archive.

Other Professional Experience: Sutherland-Addy was Deputy Minister for Tourism and Culture (1986) and Higher Education (1986-1993) in the Republic of Ghana. She has undertaken consultancies with the World Bank, UNESCO , She has also served on several national and international boards including Ghana Commercial Bank, Open Society for West Africa, West African Civil Society Institute, the Commonwealth of Learning, and the Board of Trustees of the Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. the W.E.B. DuBois Centre for Pan African Culture; the Ghana Education Service Council, the National Development Planning Commission and the Media Commission. Between 2020 and 2024 ,she served on the Cultural Policy Review Committee and the Steering Committees of the Year of Return and Beyond the Return Initiatives. She currently chairs Afram Publications Ghana and is a subscriber of Star Ghana.