Isabella (Bella) Kuttruf graduated from Stony Brook University in the spring of 2026 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and minors in Africana Studies and Asian and Asian American Studies. Her research interests center particularly on Central and Southern Africa, exploring the ways colonialism continued to shape political sovereignty, resource extraction, human rights, and international relations after formal independence.
Bella's interest in African history began in high school, when a teacher, Dr. Michael G. Panzer, encouraged her to look beyond traditional Eurocentric narratives and explore the histories, people, and perspectives that are too often overlooked or diminished in the telling of history. At Stony Brook, her studies in Africana Studies and carceral studies further shaped her interest in the relationship between colonialism, systems of racial power, and struggles for freedom.
Her undergraduate research focused on the Congo during the transition from Belgian colonial rule to independence and the emergence of the Cold War in Africa. She is particularly interested in Patrice Lumumba, the political crisis surrounding Congolese independence, and the role of foreign intervention and natural resource extraction in shaping the postcolonial Congolese state. More broadly, her work asks how imperial power changes form after formal colonialism ends and how African societies and political actors navigated, resisted, and reshaped those systems.
