Dr. Rabiat Akande is an Academy Scholar at Harvard University Academy for International and Area Studies. Rabiat is a lawyer, and a legal historian of Colonial and Postcolonial Africa working at the intersection of Law and Religion, Islamic Law, Constitutional law and International Law. 

She received her Bachelor of Laws Degree from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and her doctorate from Harvard Law School, with a dissertation prize. A book manuscript, Empire, Law and Religion in Northern Nigeria, based on the dissertation, is currently under contract with Cambridge University Press. 

Rabiat’s work has been supported by several fellowships including the Cravath International Research fellowship, the Clark Byse Fellowship, the Harvard Law and Society in the Muslim World Research Grant and as part of an International Research Collaborative sponsored the Law and Society Association. Rabiat  is admitted to practice Law in Nigeria and in the State of New York in the United States.