Julia Aker Duany

Julia Aker Duany (born 1954) is a South Sudanese politician, educator, and activist.

Biography Julia Aker Duany was born in 1954, one of 32 children in village of cattle herders in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. She married Wal Duany, a government finance minister and former resistance fighter in the First Sudanese Civil War, in 1972. During the Second Sudanese Civil War, they fled the country in 1984, settling in the United States in Bloomington, Indiana.

At Indiana University Bloomington, she earned a B.S. in social studies in 1987, an M.S. in international and comparative education in 1989, and a Ph.D. in higher education in 1999. Her PhD dissertation was Sudanese women and education: The struggle for equal access and participation.

Duany worked at IU's Vincent and Lin Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis and founded the South Sudanese Friends International in 1994. Julia Duany was a Fulbright Scholar at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda in 2005.

Personal life Julia and Wal Duany had five children. They all played basketball for Bloomington High School North and received basketball scholarships to Division I schools. They are thought to be the first family to ever send five children to college on basketball scholarships:

Duany Duany - University of Wisconsin Madison - Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball Nyagon Duany: Bradley University - Bradley Braves women's basketball Kueth Duany: Syracuse University - Syracuse Orange men's basketball Nok Duany: Georgetown University - Georgetown Hoyas women's basketball Bil Duany: Eastern Illinois University - Eastern Illinois Panthers men's basketball