Funlayo Easter Wood

African and African American Studies, with a primary field in Religion

Funlayo Easter Wood is a second year doctoral student in African and African American Studies with a primary field in Religion. A native New Yorker, Funlayo graduated summa cum laude with a BA from the City University of New York Degree for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies (African Diaspora in the Americas, 2008). She graduated magna cum laude with an MA from the City College of New York (History, 2010) where she was a graduate fellow at the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies. An initiated a priestess of Obatala and Iyanifa in the Ifá-Orisa spiritual tradition, Funlayo seeks to substantively contribute her voice as a scholar-practitioner of the tradition.  Her research centers on theological and philosophical aspects of Ifá, exegesis of the Ifá oral literary corpus and comparative analysis of Ifá-Orisa tradition, within all of which she privileges Yoruba language as a conduit to understanding.

Funlayo serves on the boards of the Orisa Community Development Corporation and Creating a Culture of Peace, non-profit organizations dedicated to community building. Additionally, she is a Junior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and the creator of Ase Ire, an inspirational, informational web space and resource center.