Temi Alao
(she/her/hers)
Rice University alumna. Current graduate student in the department of Sociology at the University of Florida.
I study identity and the fluidity of race. My research looks at how diasporic, cultural and transnational processes, ethnicity, and immigrant generation status influence the construction and conceptualization of Black identity.
I engage with scholarship on race criticality, racial group consciousness, and the African diaspora on relevant issues such as collective political behavior, social movement participation, and social inequality.
Danielle Apugo
(she/her/hers)
My name is Danielle Apugo and I professionally engage the world as a former K-12 teacher turned interdisciplinary research scholar interested in the storied experiences of Black women and girls in the education context (K-12 to College). I am currently assistant professor of education in the department of teaching and learning at Virginia Commonwealth University. My research is very personal to me and I take great pleasure in experimenting with bold and innovative ways to communicate research findings to broader audiences. My most recent book, Strong Black Girls: Reclaiming Schools in Their Own Image (2020) is co-edited with Drs. Lynnette Mawhinney and Afiya Mbilishaka, and is available now through Columbia University Teachers College Press.
Paris Ball
(she/her/hers)
Paris Ball graduated Magna Cum Laude from Spelman College with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Paris is a doctoral student in the Clinical and School Psychology program at UVa. Paris’ research interests center around the holistic development of Black girls within families, school, and communities
Taryrn Brown
(she/her/hers)
Taryrn T.C. Brown, PhD, is Clinical Assistant Professor of Social Foundations and Program Coordinator for the Schools, Society, and Policy Specialization at the University of Florida. Her teaching and research broadly examines interpretive, normative, and critical perspectives of education, with emphasis on the experiences of minoritized individuals and communities. Her interdisciplinary work promotes critical questions that challenge the standard assumptions about the purposes of schools in society and the role that race, class, and gender play in aspects of teaching and learning. As a scholar-practitioner, her scholarship focuses on Black girlhood studies, Black feminism, and critical race theory.
Victoria Bryant
(she/her/hers)
Victoria Bryant is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill majoring in Public Policy & Political Science with a minor for in Spanish. Her entire educational career has taken place in predominantly white spaces. This fact motivates her dedication to explorations of Black girlhood in education. Victoria’s goals are to foster spaces where Black girls are not required to conform and minimize themselves for others. She aims to implement policies that understand, rather than punish, the Black girl’s intersectional identity. She understands the power of substantive research in the empowerment and validation of underrepresented student voices.
Sheretta Butler-Barnes
(she/her/hers)
Sheretta T. Butler-Barnes, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. She has expertise and scholarly work on the impact of racism and the use of culturally strength-based assets on the educational and health outcomes of Black American families.
Loren Cahill
(she/her/hers)
Loren S. Cahill is an assistant professor at Smith College School for Social Work. Cahill grew up in St Louis, MO where she was nurtured by a family of judges, lawyers, teachers, and social workers. She has carried the lessons learned from her family and community into her organizing, service, and research. Cahill received her Ph.D. in Critical Social Personality Environmental Psychology from The City University of New York Graduate Center, an M.S.W. from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and a B.A. in Africana and Educational Studies from Wellesley College. Cahill has also had the distinct privilege to collaborate with Black girl artists in Philadelphia, PA, organize with Black young mothers and survivors of sexual assault in Brooklyn, NY, and consult with African women leaders through the Gates Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya.
Cahill’s scholarship interrogates how understanding the implications of intersectionality, specifically the nexus of race and gender, impacts constructions of affect, space, and time. It seeks to better comprehend spaces curated by and for Black women and girls, but also has important implications for the construction of institutional and informal spaces where they might be present. Cahill is creating a body of research that chronicles people, place, and transformative movements. It is rooted in concurrently studying how histories, lives, and structures can result in radical interventions that advance justice.
Helena Donato-Sapp
(she/her/hers)
Helena Donato-Sapp is 12-years-old and in the 7th-grade. She lives in Long Beach, California with her two fathers. She is an artist with two pieces of art curated into national museums. She is an author with multiple scholarly publications. She is a reporter for a national girl-power magazine. She is an athlete who just earned her blue belt in karate. At the age of 12, she has already been an invited conference poet for a national Think Tank, a high school graduation speaker, and guest lectures twice a semester in a university course for future educators where she speaks on how “kids can tackle tough topics.” She has recently received two national awards for her activism. Learn more at www.helenalourdes.com.
Taqiyyah Elliott
(she/her/hers)
Taqiyyah Elliott, M.Ed. is a graduate student in the Vanderbilt Divinity School. In addition, an assistant program coordinator for Black Girl Magic Crew, a local Nashville, high school, after school program. Her research is focused on mapping the sociology and spirituality of Blackgirlhood. More specifically, she examines the spaces and places [religious and non-religious] that Blackgirls occupy and create outside of school that positively impact her identity and spirituality in order to identify the resources/tools within those spaces to sustain and curate to design and chart community care models and programming for Blackgirls development.
Crystal Endsley
(she/her/hers)
Dr. Crystal Leigh Endsley is a spoken word artist and Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at John Jay College. Her interests include the intersection of spoken word poetry, feminist theory, identity, critical pedagogy, and performance.
Jennifer Ervin
(she/her/hers)
Jennifer Ervin is a doctoral student at the University of Georgia. Her work explores justice pedagogies in English language arts classrooms, and how teachers engage in this work with literature instruction specifically. She also focuses on the impact of educational policies on English language arts curricula, and how these policies affect teachers’ pedagogical practices in literary analysis instruction.
Khrysta Evans
(she/her/hers)
Khrysta A. Evans is a PhD student in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Originally from The Bronx, NY, she earned her BA in Sociology from the University of Maryland, and her MA in Educational Studies from the University of Michigan. Before returning for her PhD, Khrysta spent several years working in student support roles in schools and non-profits. As a doctoral student, Khrysta is interested in Black girls’ knowledge production and the various strategies and cartographies they employ to navigate educational spaces. Funding for this project was graciously provided by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s 4W Initiative.
Kimberly Ferrell
(she/her/hers)
Kimberly Ferrell, is a current doctoral student at Eastern Michigan University, Educational Studies program and Urban Education. She is an instructor at Eastern Michigan University, teaching Social Foundation, Community education courses. Her research interests include Black girlhood studies, Black women studies, concerning phenomenology on the hardships such as the intersections of racism, sexism and classism and how they narrate their schooling experiences.
She is also a wife, mother of three, a minister, a civil rights activist in her community. She works at Eastern Michigan University in the Women’s Resource Center as an events programmer primarily educating students and the public on the awareness of domestic violence, sexual assault and human/sex trafficking.
She received her Bachelors in Communication and Masters in Women’s and Gender Studies at Eastern Michigan University. She is a mentor to youth of color and women of color, a published author, a spiritual advisor and a mentor to youth and young adults of color in her community. Kim is an Agency Director for a young men of color, basketball AAU team in Ypsilanti, which serves youth of Black and Hispanic ethnicities. She just started a women of color biblical teaching book club group. Kim enjoys spending time with her children, having family gatherings, researching history, teaching, and volunteering in her community.
Misha Inniss-Thompson
(she/her/hers)
Misha N. Inniss-Thompson is an Assistant Research Professor in the department of Psychology at Cornell University. Dr. Inniss-Thompson received her doctorate in Community Research and Action at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Inniss-Thompson’s research examines the spaces and stories that shape Black girls’ mental health and wellness using a cultural-assets perspective. She passionate about centering Black girls’ voices in the research process through methodological approaches such as photovoice and youth participatory action research. Her favorite hobbies including reading Black girl books (especially memoirs), baking, and listening to podcasts.
Halimah Kihulo
(she/her/hers)
Halimah Kihulo is a recent graduate from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. She graduated with honors with a bachelor’s degree in Forensic Psychology and was honored with the Robert S. Morrow award for academic achievement. She currently works as a peer mentor for the Honors Program at John Jay and as a writing tutor at John Jay’s Alan Siegel Writing Center. Halimah is passionate about writing, mental and physical wellness, and education and hopes to become an educator in some capacity in the near future.
Seanna Leath
(she/her/hers)
Dr. Leath uses interdisciplinary approaches in education and psychology to understand and address issues related to the holistic development of Black girls and women in the context of families, schools, and communities. Specifically, her research program focuses on addressing how race and gender identity beliefs support psychological resilience among Black girls, and exploring the influence of discrimination and stigma on a variety of outcomes among Black girls and women.
Kisha McPherson
(she/her/hers)
Dr. Kisha McPherson is an educator and scholar with over 15 years of research and teaching experience. Her work centres on Black feminist epistemologies, cultural studies, media, and education. Her writing and scholarship are focused on how media (traditional and new), and contemporary representations of Blackness impact the identities and education of Black youth. Dr. McPherson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Professional Communication (ProComm) in The Creative School at Ryerson University.
Lateasha Meyers
(she/her/hers)
Dr. Lateasha Meyers is an experienced educator with a history of working in both after school and higher education settings. She received her B.A. in Children’s Studies and Sociology from Eastern Washington University. Her M.A. from Washington State University in Educational Leadership and her Ph.D. at Miami University in Educational Leadership with a certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research centers education and Black girlhood. Her research focuses on how Black girls construct their educational worlds and more specifically how the intersections of class, race, gender, and age affect their constructions. Furthermore, in her work, she is interested in challenging traditional ways of knowing and doing research by incorporating visual art-based methods. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Multicultural and Gender Studies at California State University Chico.
Lauren Mims
(she/her/hers)
Lauren C. Mims, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at Ball State University. Dr. Mims earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education. Dr. Mims obtained a B.A. in English and Psychology from the University of Virginia in 2012 and a M.A. in Child Development with a concentration in Clinical Developmental Health from Tufts University in 2014. Broadly, Dr. Mims’ research examines how school environments influence how African American youth learn and develop their identities. She has addressed these issues extensively in her research, scholarship, teaching, and service
Based on her work with/for Black girls over the past decade, Dr. Mims has developed socio-emotional courses for Black girls. In 2019, she taught Black Girl Becoming. Michelle Obama’s bestselling novel “Becoming” serves as the anchor text. In 2020, she will teach Black Girl Power Hour. Dr. Mims takes a strengths-based approach that centers Black girls’ voices. Specifically the program calls for the girls to apply what they learn to draft new curriculum, research proposals, and policies each week. Her work has been featured in popular press outlets such as Black Enterprise, The Root, For Harriet, and Bustle.
Ashley Smith-Purviance
(she/her/hers)
Ashley is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies with a joint appointment in the Department of Public and Community Service Studies at Providence College. Her research examines the various forms of discipline and punishment, anti-Blackness, and gender violence Black girls experience in schools and society. Her most recent work, “Masked Violence against Black Women and Girls” was published in Feminist Studies. Additionally, her research and community-engaged work explores the necessity of alternative educational spaces—also known as Black girl space, created by and for Black girls. She holds a PhD in Educational Policy and a minor in Gender and Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tiffany Steele
(she/her/hers)
Dr. Tiffany Steele is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Masters in Higher Education Program at Oakland University. Her research interest broadly focuses on access and retention of minoritized students and staff members at predominantly white institutions with an emphasis on the lived experiences of Black women and girls in education. Specifically, Dr. Steele analyzes the lived experiences of both Black girls and women during their educational journeys to draw connections between inequitable factors that influence their daily living and educational trajectories. Her work is published in several journals including the College Student Affairs Journal, College Student Affairs Leadership, AERA Open, and Oracle: The Research Journal of the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors.
Candy Taaffe
(she/her/hers)
Claudine Taaffe, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer in the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University. Taaffe is an ethnographer, who engages critical qualitative methods in her work with African American girls. Her research is centered in examining the ways in which Black girls, who are constructed as “at‐risk”, negotiate spaces of decision‐making, identity, and community‐building using the creative arts.
Asia Thomas
(she/her/hers)
Asia Thomas is a doctoral student in Teaching and Teacher Education at Georgia State University. She earned her Master of Science degree in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (Curriculum Studies) at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa.
Her research interests, positioned in critical race theory, focus on the ancestral legacy and contemporary experiences of Black women teachers in K-12 education and teacher education. Her research expands to her teaching practices as an anti-racist humanities teacher and curriculum writer.
Ayanna Troutman
(she/her/hers)
Ayanna is a proud graduate of Spelman College and current doctoral student in the School Psychology program at the University of Florida. Her research interests include the exploration of Black girls’ experiences in the K-12 setting, adapting social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) interventions for Black youth, and examining how youth Black youth engage in resistance and radicalism in their communities and schools. Ayanna’s ultimate goal is to become faculty at a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to conduct research highlighting Black students’ experiences in the education system.
