Eziaku Nwokocha earned her PhD with distinction in May 2019 in Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her fields of focus are Transnational Feminism and Religions in the Americas and she earned certificates in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies; Latin American and Latino Studies; and in College and University Teaching. Her dissertation, entitled Vodou en Vogue: Fashion, Ritual and Spiritual Innovation in Haitian Vodou, focuses on the inventive fashion practices of a Vodou practitioner, Manbo Maude, in her Vodou temples in Mattapan, Massachusetts and Jacmel, Haiti. Additionally she graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.A. in Black Studies and Feminist Studies, where she was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar.
She also holds a Masters of Theological Studies with a concentration in African and African American Religions from Harvard Divinity School. She was featured in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin Magazine; Summer/Autumn 2013 edition titled, “An Equilibrist Vodou Goddess.” Her research focuses on the intersections of gender and sexuality, race, religion, and material culture in Africa and the African Diaspora. During her spare time she is hip hop and pop cycle instructor at Smart Fitness Studios.