Profile Mariama Awumbila holds a Ph.D. (Geography) from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, an MA in Population Studies from the University of Ghana, and a Bachelors degree in Geography with Sociology also from the University of Ghana.
She is a Professor at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, and also at the Centre for Migration Studies, both at the University of Ghana. She is also the founding Director of the Centre for Migration Studies from 2006 to 2014. She has been a David Bell Research Fellow and a Fulbright Senior African Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Center for Population and Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Her research interests are in the areas of migration, livelihoods and development, intra-regional labour migration, gender and development, urbanization, population and development among others. She has provided consultancy and extension services in several areas for several international and national agencies including the UK Department for International Development (DFID), UK Research and Innovation GCRF, International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the European Union (EU), World Bank, and several MMDAs among others. She was lead consultant to the Ghana Inter Ministerial Steering Committee on Migration (IMSCM) for the development of a Ghana National migration policy from 2012 to 2016.
She was also the Lead Partner and Principal Researcher for the DFID funded "Migrating Out of Poverty" project from 2010 to 2019. From 2007 to 2014, She was the Project Director for the Netherlands Universities Foundation for International Cooperation Netherlands (NUFFIC) Project "Support to Centre for Migration Studies". Since 2006 she nurtured the establishment of the Centre for Migration Studies into a full-fledged University Centre, undertaking extensive migration research and extension services, and offering MA, M.Phil and Ph.D courses in migration studies, currently the only such Centre in West Africa.
She has served on several professional and national governing boards including the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) Board (2013 to 2016), Ghana Statistical Service Board (2005 to 2016, 2025), the Inter Ministerial Steering Committee on Migration, the National Council for Tertiary Education, the Governing Council of the University of Development Studies and the World Vision Ghana Advisory Board among others. From 2017 to 2022, she was a member of the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada (NCE) Standing Selection Committee.
