Symposium

Rose M. Brewer, PhD is an activist scholar and The Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor and past chairperson of the Department of African American & African Studies, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Publishing extensively on political economy, radical Black feminism and social movements, she is a University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Medalist, a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers, a recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Teaching Award, and a Josie R. Johnson Social Justice Award recipient. 

Kenly Brown, PhD is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She practices humanist social science situated at the nexus of race, gender, and institutional violence. Kenly currently runs the Black Girlhood Studies Lab, housed in the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Equity at Washington University in St. Louis. This research is supported by the Ford Foundation and American Educational Research Association Minority Fellowship.

Melissa C. Brown, PhD is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a PhD in sociology in 2019. Her areas of expertise include intersectionality, digital sociology, social movements, and sexual politics.

Brown’s current project centers on how Black women exotic dancers based in the urban South use social networking smartphone applications for advertising and networking. Brown’s previous research on antiracist and Black feminist social media activism has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies. She is also the digital editor for Black Feminist Sociology, a forthcoming volume edited by Professors Zakiya Luna and Whitney Pirtle.

For more information about Brown’s work, please go to blackfeminisms.com.

LeConté J. Dill, PhD is a community-accountable scholar, educator, and poet. She holds degrees from Spelman College, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. Currently, Dr. Dill is the Director of Public Health Practice and a Clinical Associate Professor at the New York University School of Global Public Health. Also since 2015, she has been a Research Associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Guided by Black Feminist epistemologies and using qualitative and arts-based research methods, Dr. Dill has a commitment toward transdisciplinary scholarship. She listens to and shows up for urban Black girls and other youth of color and works to rigorously document their experiences of violence, safety, resilience, and wellness. 

Brittany Friedman, PhD holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University and is an incoming Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California, beginning summer 2021. Prior to joining the University of Southern California, Friedman began her academic career as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University—New Brunswick. Friedman is a 2021-2022 American Bar Foundation Access to Justice Faculty Scholar. A sociologist of punishment and social control, she researches race and prison order, inequality, mobilization against the carceral state, and the criminal legal system as an economic market. Her first book is under contract with The University of North Carolina Press and is tentatively titled Born in Blood: Death Work, White Power, and the Rise of the Black Guerilla Family. In addition to her book, Friedman is Co-PI of a comparative study of pay-to-stay practices and PI of the Project on Covid-19 and New Jersey Prisons.

Saida Grundy, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Boston University. She is a feminist scholar whose research focuses on campus sexual assault and gender and sexuality within the Black middle class. Grundy is the author of Manhood Within the Margins: Promise, Peril, and Paradox at the Historically Black College for Men (California, forthcoming).

Jennifer James, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She is a qualitative researcher and Black feminist scholar whose research lies at the intersection of race, gender, and health. Her past work has focused on the lived experience of cancer, and she is now studying experiences of health and illness for women who have been incarcerated.

Maria S. Johnson, PhD is founder and chairperson of the Black Women and Girls Fund (BWGF). BWGF awards grants to projects that support Black women and girls. Johnson is completing a book titled Black Daughters, Black Fathers: Understanding Complex Family Relationships (under contract with NYU Press). She earned a PhD from the University of Michigan and a BA from Hampton University.

Jasmine Kelekay, PhD Candidate is an Afro-Finland-Swedish researcher and activist focusing on anti-Black racism and Black activism in the Nordics. She is at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a visiting researcher at the Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism (CEMFOR) at Uppsala University. Kelekay is one of Black Feminist Sociology’s editorial assistants and tech moderator of the symposium. 

Zakiya Luna, MSW, PhD is Associate Professor of Sociology and Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research, teaching and community work are in the areas of social movements, human rights and health. Her research on the reproductive justice movement includes the book Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice (NYU Press). She is co-editor of Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis.

Lori Latrice Martin, PhD is Associate Dean and Professor of African and African American Studies at Louisiana State University. Dr. Martin currently holds the Erich and Lea Sternberg Honors Professorship. Additionally, she is LSU’s Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR). Dr. Martin is also Interim Director of the Department of African and African American Studies. She has written or edited more than 20 books and many journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Martin’s most recent books include Introduction to Africana Demography and America in Denial. Dr. Martin’s areas of expertise are race and ethnicity, racial wealth inequality, and race and sports. She is also on the Executive Committee of ABIS (Advancement of Blacks in Sports).

Carolette Norwood, PhD is Associate Professor and Assistant Department Head in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati (UC). Dr. Norwood’s research and teaching interests include US and Comparative Black Feminism(s); and how Violence informs Reproductive and Sexual Health (In)Justice at the intersection of gender, race, sexuality, place and space. Dr. Norwood’s work is published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships, Journal of Black Psychology, The American Journal of Public Health, The American Journal of Health Studies, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Journal of International Women’s Studies, Development in Practice, Sociology Compass, etc. Dr. Norwood is currently writing a first book tentatively entitled: Jim Crow Geographies: Mapping the Intersections of Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Urbane Space.

Whitney N. Laster Pirtle, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and McArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights at the University of California, Merced, where she directs the Sociology of Health and Equity (SHE) Lab. She is a critical race, Black feminist scholar currently studying disparities in Covid-19, racial formation in South Africa, and racism on college campuses. She was a 2018 Ford Foundation Postdoc Awardee and was awarded the 2020 A. Wade Smith Award for Teaching, Mentoring, and Service from the Association of Black Sociologists. She is co-editor of Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis.

Freeden Blume Oeur, PhD is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Education at Tufts University. His research interests include the sociology of gender and masculinity, Black feminism, and African American intellectual politics and intellectual history,. Blume Oeur is the author of Black Boys Apart: Racial Uplift and Respectability in All-Male Public Schools and co-editor (with Edward W. Morris) of Unmasking Masculinities: Men and Society.

Cynthia Neal Spence, PhD is an Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of the UNCF/Mellon Programs, and Director of the Social Justice Fellows Program at Spelman College. She received her B.A. degree from Spelman College and her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Rutgers University. Issues of service-learning, gender role socialization, and violence against women frame her research, writing, and public service.

Tashelle Wright, PhD Candidate is a McNair Scholar alumni and a founding member of the Black Graduate Scholars Association at UC Merced. Tashelle has worked for a health department in the Office of Health Disparities and as a Certified Nursing Assistant. As a PhD candidate, she is interested in aging and cognition, older adults, chronic disease and addressing preventable health disparities, specifically within Black, African, Hmong, and Latinx populations. Wright is one of Black Feminist Sociology’s editorial assistants and moderator of the symposium.