Sonia Wind is a historian whose work explores the connections between Muslim West Africa and the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade. Born and raised in Paris, she grew up within the West African diaspora, as her father is from Mali and belongs to the Soninke people, one of the earliest West African communities to adopt Islam.

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Sonia holds a BA in History and Middle Eastern Studies (2016) and an MA in Afro-Brazilian History from the Sorbonne University, Paris ( 2018), as well as an MA in Black Atlantic History from Emory University (2025). Her research and public talks focus on African, Atlantic, and Islamic histories with an emphasis on making scholarship accessible to wider audiences. Thanks to multiple scholarships and academic grants, she has conducted research in the Americas (Brazil and the US), Africa (Benin, Ghana, and Senegal), and Europe (France and Portugal).

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The Nana Asmau Project flourished in Sonia's mind when she was in graduate school. When she presented her research on African Muslims in Brazil, she realized that few people were aware of the long-lasting presence of Islam in the Americas. In a more general way, Black Muslim History has been marginalized as people often do not associate Islam with Africa, even less with the Americas. 

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The Nana Asmau Project is designed to fill this gap and give people whether they are Muslims or not, access to entertaining and educational materials about Muslim History with a focus on Black Muslim History. 

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