Biography

Tonija Hope is the Director of the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University (HU).  In this capacity, Ms. Hope oversees the Center’s strategic vision, as well as its wide-ranging international engagements including study abroad, international partnership development, global programming and the management of the Patricia Roberts Harris Fellowship for HU students. She also supports several flagship fellowships programs for the U.S. Department of State, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which are aimed at cultivating pipelines for diverse talent in foreign affairs careers.  After receiving her BA in Latin American Studies from Macalester College, Hope set out to pursue her passion for international exchange.  Beginning at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, she collaborated with scholars to develop mechanisms to increase interaction between international and South African students.  Upon her return from South Africa, Ms. Hope earned her master's degree in Tourism Administration with a focus on International Education from George Washington University in Washington, DC. 

After completing her master’s, Ms. Hope joined the DC-based international non-profit, Phelps Stokes Fund, where she began working on the US Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program and quickly became involved with other initiatives of the organization, like the Ralph Bunche Societies, and the creation of the Collaborative for Diversity in Education Abroad.  Ms. Hope was later promoted to Director of Programs for Latin America and the Caribbean, where she oversaw a variety of projects focusing on youth leadership development in Afro-descendant communities, primarily in Colombia, with thematic lenses such as comparative legal frameworks and workforce development in the health sector.  Domestically, she worked on college-readiness programs for high school students of color in the DC area and advocated for international education and study abroad opportunities for students of color throughout the US. Immediately prior to joining Howard University, Ms. Hope served as the founding Executive Director of the Baoba Fund for Racial Equity-North America, a Brazil-based non-profit, focused on supporting Afro-Brazilian civil society organizations through a $25 million challenge grant offered by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Ms. Hope is active in a variety of initiatives to promote racial equity throughout the African Diaspora.  She is the Chair of the US Civil Society Committee of the US-Colombia Action Plan to Promote Racial and Ethnic Equality (CAPREE) and is a member of the US Civil Society Committee for the US-Brazil Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination (JAPER). Ms. Hope is deeply committed to facilitating relationships between and among people of diverse cultures, and exposing young people from underserved communities, domestically and internationally, to opportunities for travel and education abroad. To that end, she serves as Board Secretary for both the Fund for Education Abroad and the International Student House of Washington, DC, and an At-Large board member of the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA). Ms. Hope is also a PhD. candidate in the Howard University School of Education's Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies program with plans to graduate in May 2024. Ms. Hope is a native Washingtonian, is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and is the proud daughter of a Liberian mother and an African American father.