Prior to joining Antioch University’s Graduate School of Leadership and Change (GSLC) in 2024, Dr. Ogbaharya taught in the Ph.D. Program in Interdisciplinary Studies at Union Institute and University, where he also served as Chair of the Public Policy and Social Change concentration. Dr. Ogbaharya brings extensive teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate level both in the traditional classroom as well as hybrid distance learning modalities.

Dr. Ogbaharya’s teaching and research interests lie in the interdisciplinary areas of public policy analysis, environmental studies, conflict resolution, and global development. Dr. Ogbaharya cherishes the unique opportunity to work with doctoral students as they navigate and surmount the different challenges of the dissertation process: from the inception of a pertinent research topic to framing a good research question to choosing a suitable methodological approach, conducting research, and producing a compelling dissertation manuscript.

Dr. Ogbaharya’s approach to Leadership Studies is particularly informed by theories of political leadership, organizational management, and institutional analysis. Building on previous research on policies and programs of community-based natural resource management in Africa, Dr. Ogbaharya is currently interested in the broader comparative questions of how certain political leaders foster the right set of institutions for rural economic development, social progress, and environmental (sustainability) outcomes, while others fail to do so. Within this comparative and institutionalist framework, Dr. Ogbaharya’s current research is concerned with how community-based conservation programs allow and/or impede leadership development and capacity building in marginalized zones and landscapes by either engendering and/or eroding social trust, a key factor in resolving and averting resource-and scarcity-related conflicts. The local communities that serve as case studies for this research come from exemplary community-based conservation schemes that have been successfully institutionalized in different parts of Eastern and Southern Africa as well as other places characterized by fragile ecosystems, vulnerable livelihoods, and other vicissitudes of climate change.

Dr. Ogbaharya’s publications have appeared, among others, in The Cambridge Handbook of Commons Research Innovations (2021), African Arguments (2015), Journal of Eastern African Studies (2010), Journal of Third World Studies (2009), Development in Practice (2008), Peace Review (2007), and The International Journal of Humanities and Peace (2006).

Dr. Ogbaharya’s non-academic interests and hobbies include practicing Yoga, playing pickleball, visiting and working in new coffee shops and bookstores, and traveling.