Alexander de Voogt

Alexander Johan de Voogt or simply Alex de Voogt (Baarn, May 3, 1970) is a Dutch researcher and associate professor at Drew University, who worked as a curator of African Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History and best known for his work on the history and distribution of traditional mancala games. He is also editor of "Board Game Studies", the main scientific journal on the history of board games.
De Voogt began studying mancala in the 1990s, while he was in Zanzibar studying Swahili. At the time, he began analyzing the rules and strategies of the Bao mancala game (one of the most complex mancala games) by interviewing acknowledged Zanzibari "Bao masters". In 1995 he published his PhD thesis "Limits of the Mind: Towards a Characterization of Bao Mastership" where he analyzed the intellectual abilities required to master the Bao game.
The work on Bao set the basis for all subsequent research activities by De Voogt. Among the many mancala games De Voogt has been collecting information on and studying there are Katro (Madagascar), Owela (Namibia), Warri (Barbados), Hawalis (Oman), Ohvalhu (Maldives), Mangaley (Syria) and Olinda Keliya (Sri Lanka).