Doctor of history, Mamadou Diouf specialises in major historical, social, political and cultural african issues. From 1982 to 1999, he was lecturer, then assistant professor in the history department of the University of Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal. In 1999, he moved to the United States where he taught African-American history and studies at the University of Michigan. Today, Mamadou Diouf is a professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York, USA, where he heads the Institute of African Studies. An international intellectual, Mamadou Diouf shares his knowledge in Europe, where he is a visiting professor at the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po in Paris.

Mamadou Diouf's main aim is to study the political and societal liberalisation of many African countries. One of his first works, Senegal under Abdou Diouf: State and society (1992), co-written with Momar Coumba Diop, has established itself as a seminal work in the study of Senegalese democracy. A dozen essays followed, such as Political figures in Africa (1999), also co-written with Momar Coumba Diop, which explores social movements and economic reforms in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, and The Arts of Citizenship in African Cities (2014), co-directed with Rosalind Fredericks, which offers a reading of the social and urban policies deployed in Africa today.

Its analysis of contemporary African societies promotes cross-disciplinary and cultural exchange. Through his various work, he establishes connections between history, anthropology, sociology and urban studies, interconnecting the tools, concepts and analyses of these disciplines. At the crossroads of theoretical approaches, Mamadou Diouf’s books are published in English and French.