Penda Mbow

Penda Mbow, born in 1955, is a historian, an activist, and a Senegalese politician. Minister of Culture of Senegal for several months in 2001, she is a professor at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar and president of Mouvement citoyen (Citizens' Movement).

Penda Mbow was born in April 1955.

In 1986 she obtained a doctorate in Medieval History at Université de Provence in France, with a thesis titled L'aristocratie militaire mameluke d'après le cadastre d'Ibn al-Ji'an : éléments de comparaison avec la France (in English: The Mameluke Military Aristocracy after the Public Register of Ibn al-Ji'an: Elements of Comparison with France). Her academic research focuses on African intellectual history and Islamic gender studies.

• Fulbright Scholarship, Michigan State University
• Rockefeller Foundation award, for research at the Bellagio Center in Italy.
• Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur Francaise (Knight of the French Legion of Honor) 2003
• Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mérite, France, 1999.
• Honorary doctor at the University of Uppsala in January 2005.