About

Oluwanifemi Ologunorisa (she/her) is a scholar-practitioner who uses ethnography and qualitative approaches to explore African textiles, women’s entrepreneurship, and the knowledge systems that sustain them. Her work focuses on how traditional practices like Adire (tie-and-dye) are adapted, sustained, and transformed, highlighting the labor, creativity, and resilience of the women who make it possible. She is interested in the intersections of digital education, women and girls’ empowerment, and economic development, grounded in the belief that some of the most significant technological knowledge in the world lives in the hands, bodies, and minds of women who are rarely recognized as innovators.

Oluwanifemi is a PhD candidate in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, where her dissertation examines how Nigerian women entrepreneurs sustain and innovate Adire as indigenous technology in South-West Nigeria. She holds a Master’s degree in Applied Women and Gender Studies from Claremont Graduate University, California and a Bachelor’s degree in English Language from Elizade University, Nigeria.

During her doctoral work, she has served as a Graduate Assistant for Student Engagement at IU’s Center of Excellence for Women and Technology, a Digital Impact Alliance Fellow at the UN Foundation, and Program Coordinator at the Omega Resilience Awards. She has been supported by the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship from the US Department of Education, the HASTAC Scholar and Fellowship at IU’s Institute of Digital Art and Humanities, and the Women Graduates-USA Education Innovation Fellowship. She also received a Women Graduates-USA Small Grant for her project African Women and Digital Storytelling, which she designed and delivered to over 80 women across multiple African countries.

She is also a storyteller, writer, and the proud aunt to a gorgeous niece, bringing curiosity, care, and creativity from her personal life into every project she undertakes.