About
I am a Data Curator at the Cluster of Excellence "Africa Multiple", University of Bayreuth (Germany). In this role, I bridge the gap between technical infrastructure and African Studies, supporting researchers in managing data according to FAIR and CARE principles while ensuring that digital literacy and ethical standards are integrated into our workflows. I also continue my research at the intersection of Islamic studies, digital humanities (DH), and artificial intelligence (AI), exploring how emerging technologies can transform the way we access, analyse, and interpret historical archives.
My work combines over a decade of expertise on Islam in Francophone West Africa and extensive fieldwork in the region. My research examines the diverse ways Muslim communities, notably youth and women, have engaged with politics, education, and the public sphere in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, and Togo since the 1960s—and how computational methods can reveal new patterns across these histories. Previously, I was a Research Fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO).
DH, AI, and the Islam West Africa Collection (IWAC)
Since 2023, I have been developing the Islam West Africa Collection (IWAC), an open-access database comprising over 14,500 items relating to Islam across the region. I experiment with AI-assisted workflows to process under-resourced African archives at scale.
I also explore how "vibe coding" and agentic AI tools can democratise the use of computational methods by allowing social science scholars to prototype applications through natural language prompts. Data visualisation transforms analyses into accessible narratives: the IWAC Dashboard lets users explore the collection through interactive maps, networks, and word clouds, while the IWAC Sentiment Analysis reveal how newspapers portray Islam across the region.
Current Project
I am coordinating Digital Humanities and AI in African Studies, a collaborative research initiative comprising two international workshops in 2026 (Hanover and Stellenbosch ) and a forthcoming co-edited volume to be published by Bielefeld University Press. This project brings together scholars from Africa, Europe, and beyond to examine how computational tools can transform research methods while centring African knowledge systems.
Books & Publications
My recent book, Religious Activism on Campuses in Togo and Benin (Madore, 2025) , examines the emergence of Christian and Muslim student associations in the 1970s and their subsequent reshaping of university life in Lomé and Abomey-Calavi, challenging the prevailing secular ideologies. I am also the author of La construction d'une sphère publique musulmane en Afrique de l'Ouest (Madore, 2016) and the co-editor of Religiosity on University Campuses in Africa (Sounaye and Madore, 2023) . In addition, I have co-edited two special journal issues: "Muslim Minorities in Africa, Part 1" (Madore and Schulz, 2021) & "Part 2" (Madore and Schulz, 2022) and "Les acteurs religieux africains à l'ère du numérique" (Millet-Mouity and Madore, 2017) . My research has been published in eleven peer-reviewed journals and seven edited volumes.
Consulting
Beyond academia, I work with Communitology to produce specialised Country of Origin Information (COI) reports for asylum and immigration cases involving Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, and Togo.
Training & Affiliations
I hold a Ph.D. in History from Université Laval and previously held a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Florida.