Born in Senegal, West Africa, Baba Badji is currently a Chancellor’s Fellow and a third year Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature, with the Track for International Writers & a combined Graduate Certificate in Translation Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. His research interests are situated on 20th C American, African, Caribbean, Francophone Studies, Poetry: fixed & free forms, experimentation, Poetics of Exile & Poetics of Blackness, Modernism, Postcolonial Studies. He holds a BA in English & French Francophone Studies from the College of Wooster, Ohio and received his MFA in poetry, and translation from Columbia University, New York City. He is fluent in French, Wolof, Mende and Diola.  His first Chapbook, Owls of Senegal was a finalist for the 2016 Seattle Review judged by Claudia Rankine. His translation has appeared on The 2014 Pen World Voice Festival. Work is forthcoming elsewhere.