Yaa Alexandra St Tellien (She/Li)Ph.D. Student (2024 Cohort)

Alexandra St Tellien is a Haitian PhD student of African American Studies at Emory University and is both a Woodruff Fellow and Centennial Scholar. She is from Gonaïves, Haiti and a Manbo (Vodou priestess) in northern Vodou’s Tcha-Tcha/Deka Lineage. With a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Florida and an M.A. in Anthropology (linguistic) from Georgia State University,  her areas of interest are Indigenous African and African heritage religious traditions at the intersection of language, culture, and semiotics and African derived ritual and sacred languages and communications as a body of knowledge. Alexandra’s doctoral research, supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow Program (NSF GRFP), investigates Langaj (Haitian Vodou ritual language) as a language of devotion that connects Vodouvi (devotees) to various West and Central African communities and lineages in deep and meaningful ways. Her work aims to powerfully narrate the African legacies and cultures rooted in Vodou and charge the African Diaspora with the mission of Sankɔfa.

Between 2021-2022, Alexandra was a Fulbright U.S. Student in Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire. Alexandra also served as a Curatorial Research Assistant Intern at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. She currently serves as a Junior Council Member for KOSANBA, the Scholarly Association for the Study of Haitian Vodou, and a Fulbright U.S. Student Alumni Ambassador.