Conference Presenters & Performers
L'LERRÉT AILITH is a transgender woman attending Xavier University of Louisiana. Her passion for trans* advocacy and awareness has truly inspired her to dig deep into the constructs surrounding cisgender privilege and how they establish institutionalized transphobia in a very much misinformed society.
BLACK YOUTH PROJECT 100 (BYP 100) is an activist member-based organization of 18-35 year olds, dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. We do this through building a network focused on transformative leadership development, non-violent direct action organizing, advocacy, and education.
JOY BOGGS , MA Women & Gender Studies from DePaul University, is an emerging scholar whose research concerns identity formation, production and performance in contemporary US culture with a particular emphasis on how these elements sharpen the politics of difference. President of the DePaul Women’s Network (DWN), Joy is a Public Voices Fellow, and is affiliated with the James & Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership.
KIMBERLY B. BONNER is a queer Black feminist theorist whose work examines the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality and nationalism. My core research focuses upon military institutions and queries the legitimate ties linking social, educational and global political economies to armed forces and connecting these entities to ordinary citizens internationally.
ROBIN BOYLORN, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama. She is the author of Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience and co-editor of Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life. She is also a member of the scholar-activist group, the Crunk Feminist Collective.
JASMINE BRITO is a Harlem native and Co-Executive Director of Breaking Silence Project: Passing the Mic to Our Daughters Project. Jasmine has worked in the music industry for over 10 years and currently serves as the Release Planner for RED Affiliated Labels a division of Sony Music Entertainment.
DR. SHANESHA R. F. BROOKS-TATUM is Visiting Scholar-in-Residence in Women’s Studies at Agnes Scott College and author of the forthcoming book, The Holy Hip-Hop Movement: Performance, Politics, and the Rise of E-Spirituality. She is Co-Editor of Reading African American Experiences in the Obama Era : Theory, Advocacy, Activism (2012) and Founder and Co-Chair of the Annual National Black Women’s Life Balance and Wellness Conference.
AISHIA BROWN is a current graduate student at Texas A&M University in the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences where she studies youth development. Her research interests include exploring the influence that hip-hop culture has on marginalized youth and how this influence can be used as a tool for empowerment.
EVETTE DIONE BROWN is cultural critic whose work has been published in The Root, UPTOWN and other publications. She’s also served as Clutch Magazine’s daily editor. Brown is a critical media studies scholar researching controlling images of Black American women. She’s currently a graduate student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
NUALA CABRAL is a Rhode Island native who is an educator, activist and award-winning filmmaker, who has taught media production and media literacy in high schools, colleges and community centers. In 2010, Nuala co-founded FAAN Mail (Fostering Activism & Alternatives Now!) a media literacy/activist project formed by women of color and based in Philadelphia. Nuala is also a member of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100), an activist organization dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people.
TARRELL CAMPBELL is an educator, social commentator, and artist. A native of St. Louis, Tarrell holds degrees from Stanford University, Webster University and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Currently, he is a doctoral student at Saint Louis University, where his research focuses on the representation of masculinity in twentieth century American literature.
CHARLENE CARRUTHERS is a political organizer and writer with over 10 years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work. Charlene currently serves as a national organizer for the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100). She lives on the South Side of Chicago and tweets at @CharleneCac.
CASSANDRA CHANEY is an Associate Professor in Child and Family Studies at Louisiana State University. She is broadly interested in the dynamics of Black family life, and focuses on the narratives of Blacks in dating, cohabiting, and married relationships, as well as the ways that religiosity and spirituality supports Blacks. In addition, she examines representations of Black couples and families in popular forms of mass media. She recently published the co-edited the book Black Women in Leadership: Their Historical and Contemporary Contributions with Dr. Dannielle Joy Davis.
MYISHA CHERRY teaches philosophy at John Jay College where she is also a Faculty Associate at the Institute For Criminal Justice Ethics. She is presently doing work in moral psychology and ethics with special interests in the nature and role of moral emotions, political emotions, and attitudes such as moral anger, forgiveness, and shame as well as the ethics of interpersonal relationships.
KIMBER CHEWNING is a senior Art History major at Florida State University, focusing on modern and contemporary art. She studies the relationship of new media to artistic practice and identity, as well as the intersections between “high” and “low” cultures. She takes classes in music and popular culture to supplement these interests.
VALERIE MEINERS COMEAUX is a lifelong Louisiana resident who was born and raised in Mandeville. She attended Louisiana State University where she earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum Theory with a focus on Aesthetics, Social Justice, and Democracy. A former English teacher, Valerie currently works in Baton Rouge as a curriculum writer and theatre coach.
DR. BRITTNEY COOPER is assistant professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. She is also co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, a hip hop generation feminist scholar-activist crew. Professor Cooper was named to The Root 100 for 2013, a list of top Black influencers.
CAROL CROUCH is a senior at Yale University majoring in Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies. She is interested in the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and performance. Carol is writing her thesis on the politics of respectability in Black lesbian communities, as framed through analysis of YouTube videos and etiquette manuals.
JADE CRUTCH is a student at Xavier University in New Orleans.
JESSICA DISU AKA FM SUPREME, 25, is an International Arts Management major at Columbia College Chicago. FM is the 2x champion of Louder Than A Bomb and an alumnus of Brave New Voices international youth poetry slam Future Corps program. FM Supreme has toured and performed across the United States, United Kingdom, The Netherlands and in December will journey to SE Asia as co-founder of The Peace Exchange: Chicago - Asia 2013. She is founder of CommonWealth Music Group, Chicago International Youth Peace Movement, HerStory and HisStory. FM Supreme was recently featured on BuzzFeed.com for "9 Underground Female Rappers U Need To Know.”
ABBY DOBSON is an independent scholar who received a JD degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor's degree from Williams College in Political Science and History. Also a professional singer-songwriter/recording artist/ culture producer, Abby released "Sleeping Beauty: You Are the One You Have Been Waiting On” on her LadyBraveBirdMusic label in 2010.
ANNEKE DUNBAR-GRONKE currently works as a project coordinator for Planned Parenthood in New Orleans and organizes with Nola 2 Angola, a non-profit bike ride fundraiser for the Cornerstone Builder’s Bus Project. Her studies have focused primarily on race versus class as determinants for incarceration. She is originally from Portland, OR.
ALISON FENSTERSTOCK is a staff writer at the New Orleans Times-Picayune and has written about Louisiana music for Oxford American, MOJO, Spin, and many others. Her multimedia exhibit and oral history collection on New Orleans hip-hop and bounce, Where They At, was featured at the Smithsonian-affiliated Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2010 and has traveled to Austin, New York, Minneapolis and Berlin. Fensterstock also serves as the program director for the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation, a roots music festival and educational organization in New Orleans.
VERNITA PEARL FORT is completing Ph.D. research on Music, Morality, Mind: Voices from Jamaica’s Music Community, Philosophy, and Neuroscience Intersect at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. While a US diplomat with USAID, she worked across 40 countries as an ecologist, economist and manager. She received degrees from Yale and Berkeley. She pursues dance/music/film as avocations and educational tools.
THERESA FOX, Founder of What Every Child Needs, has been presenting her comprehensive sexual health workshop Sex, Drugs & Hip-Hop since 2007. During these conversations she uses Spoken Word poetry, coupled with knowledge of current hip-hop messages and youth culture, to gain participants attention, their respect and their input. Her message is given in a non-heterosexist, LGBTQIP-inclusive fashion.
DEBORA FRIEDMANN has been studying street dance and hip-hop culture for the past four years. Currently studying Anthropology and Cultural Studies at Mcgill University she hopes to use her experience in hip-hop culture to expand her understanding of gender, race and the transmission of culture.
AZIZA HARDING is currently finishing her master’s degree in Media, Culture and Communications at NYU. She was educated in a primarily female environment throughout most of her life. Her research interests include the television business and its representation of blackness—primarily in regards to black women. In addition to obtaining her degree, she is working on a docu-series that focuses on contemporary issues in the black community.
HOLLY HOBBS is a PhD Candidate in ethnomusicology at Tulane University and founder of the NOLA Hiphop Archive, a digital archive of hiphop music/oral history. Hobbs is also a writer for the popular urban music blog The Smoking Section and KnowLA: the online encyclopedia of Louisiana Music and Culture. She currently serves as a consultant for the Tanzanian Heritage Project in Dar es Salaam and does musical consulting for documentary film. Her interests include musical activism, documentary filmmaking, and digital media literacy.
AJA HOLSTON is a senior Political Science major at Texas A&M and a member of the Black Youth Project 100. She strives to empower the voice of youth across the nation through interactive engagement. She also works from a Black feminist perspective and focuses on the relationships between Black women and their children, men & other women.
NATASHA HOWARD a recent graduate of Howard University’s Mass Communications and Media Studies with the Women’s Studies Graduate Certificate, is a freelance writer that teaches Communications courses at Montgomery College (Takoma Park, MD) and the Community College of Baltimore County. Her research interests include hip hop culture, images portrayed in music videos and reality television, and how race, gender, and sexuality are portrayed in the media and their effects on communication as a whole.
JAZZ HUDSON is an international Poet, Artist, & Educator who serves a host of communities seeking transformation through art. With a holistic approach to content & development, her interdisciplinary work engages audiences in dialogue and activism that extend beyond the page and stage. She is a recent recipient of the 2013 Oakland Indie Social Change Maker Award, as well as Poet Mentor Of The Month for Youth Speaks E-magazine. Jazz currently resides in Oakland, CA where she serves as a Poet Mentor/resident artist in several Bay Area schools and Organizations.
NELSON IGUNMA is a scholar and social entrepreneur based in New York City. Nelson is motivated by his diverse educational experiences to identify and level the internal and external barriers that impede our access to information, resources, and contacts, particularly for people from underserved populations.
MONIQUE JOHN is an activist specializing in black sexual politics and women’s rights. She works for Black Women's Blueprint and Impact Leadership 21, developing and promoting programming that combats sexual violence and advocates for women’s empowerment in the workforce. John is a recent Fordham graduate and blogs at moniquejohn.com.
AMBER JOHNSON, Ph.D, is Assistant Professor of Communication at Prairie View A&M. She merges qualitative and rhetorical research design in the study of intersectionality, sexuality, performance and digital media. She has published articles in several journals including Critical Studies in Media and Communication, Communication Quarterly, and Howard Journal of Communication. Her book, Messy Intersections: Navigating Cultural Terrain (Peter Lang, 2014) blends poetic narrative, autoethnography, and photography.
AMBER ROSE JOHNSON is currently a junior at Tufts University, double majoring in Education and African American studies. In 2010, Amber Rose became the Poetry Out Loud National Champion and since has been working as a teaching artist, artistic community organizer and spoken word coach for high school students in Boston.
KIMBERLY A. JOHNSON is a faculty associate at the University of Texas’ School of Public Health in Houston where she received her doctorate and manages a community-wide initiative to improve adolescent sexual health. Dr. Johnson is a native of St. Louis and a graduate of Hampton University and the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
KRISTIN KELLY is a graduate of Vanderbilt University Divinity School where she received her M. DIV and studied Social Christian Ethics and Black Church studies with a focus on Womanist theology. Kristin served as an intern for the Black Religious Scholars Group, VP of the Student Government and Academic Chair of S.H.A.D.E.S., (Serving, Helping and Affirming the Divinity in Every Sista’). Currently, Kristin is serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Fort Worth, TX.
DR. BRANDY N. KELLY PRYOR is an Assistant Professor in the Youth Development program at Texas A&M University in the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences where she received her Ph.D. Her interdisciplinary work focuses on the perception and performance of hope in marginalized youth populations domestically and abroad.
SETTI KIDANE is enrolled in the Cultural Analysis and Social Theory (MA) program at Wilfrid Laurier University, where you can find her (reluctantly) code-switching and side-eyeing everybody who utters an anglicized bastardization of her name. She passionately fights to protect black women’s right to live and be seen as complicated beings.
ONEKA LABENNETT is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University. LaBennett is the author of She’s Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn, and co-editor of Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century. An anthropologist, she has conducted oral histories of female Bronx hip hop artists.
DR. BRENDA W. LACEY 's teaching and commitment to student success expands her degrees in Special Education and American /Women's Studies. Her oral history of drill/step team performance contributed to the discourse on African American youth dance culture and she continues to explore the connection between academics and performing arts.
DR. TREVA B. LINDSEY is an Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. Her research and teaching interests include African American women’s history, black popular and expressive culture, black feminism(s), hip hop studies, critical race and gender theory, and sexual politics.
TIRHAKAH LOVE is a junior studying at Williams College. Double majoring in Political Science and American Studies with a concentration in Africana Studies, Love is interested in the variety of ways that popular culture rearticulates implicit capitalistic notions of oppression.
QRESCENT MALI MASON is doctoral candidate in the Philosophy Department at Temple University. Her dissertation focuses on the autobiographical writings of Simone de Beauvoir, the ethic of the erotic, and Black feminism. She teaches philosophy at Drexel University and Holy Family University. She loves food most of all.
BRYAN J. MCCANN is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Studies at LSU. His work on crime and public culture has appeared in several journals, including Critical Studies in Media Communication, Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, and Communication, Culture, & Critique. His current book project describes the role of gangsta rap in producing resistant discourses of criminality during the "war on crime" era of the late 1980s and 1990s. Professor McCann is also a longtime activist, whose work on death penalty and prison abolition, as well as labor and LGBTQ rights, informs his scholarship.
SABIA MCCOY-TORRES is a PhD candidate in sociocultural anthropology at Cornell University. Her research interests include: race, ethnicity, identity, the African-diaspora, reggae, hip-hop, and transnationalism with geographic focuses in the Caribbean basin and the U.S. She is also an occasional feature writer for the Caribbean music website LargeUp.com.
ALISHA MENZIES is a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida who plans to continue to publish works that examine issues of identity construction while honoring alternative voices. Her research examines the intersections of race, culture and identity among culturally oppressed people. She is interested in HIV/AIDS prevention and activism in communities, and views her research as a tool to facilitate social change and highlight the plight of underrepresented communities. She hopes to impact her field by bringing race and cultural issues to the intellectual agenda of a multicultural student body.
MELINDA MILLS is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, and the Coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Castleton State College in Vermont. Her research interests center around race, class, and gender in popular culture representations, multiracial identity formation, interracial relationships, and street harassment.
KRISTA MINCEY is an Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. Her research interests are in Black men’s health, health disparities, and mental health. She is particularly interested in what elements impact Black men’s health and their health behaviors such as female influence and masculinity.
DARLINE MORALES is a junior at University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying Political Science and Latin America Caribbean Studies, with a certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies. She is a spoken word artist, emcee, photographer and videographer, with a focus on societal and political issues that directly affect her community.
DELLA V. MOSLEY is a counseling psychology doctoral student at the University of Kentucky. She received her M.S. in school counseling from The John Hopkins University in 2011. Della's clinical and research interests include the holistic health and well-being of LGBTQ youth of color, interventions fostering positive youth development, and culturally mindful interpretations of personality assessments.
SONITA MOSS received a B.A. in Sociology and French at University of Michigan in 2010. While at Michigan, she took interest in the notion of intersectionality and the complexity of holding multiple identities simultaneously. Sonita is a first year Sociology PhD candidate and a William Fontaine fellow at University of Pennsylvania where she aims to explore experiences of racial identity in post-racial America.
SANDRA GEORGE O'NEIL earned her B.S. from Georgetown University (1995), her MA in Sociology (2000) and Ph.D. in Sociology (2005) from Boston College. She has taught at the undergraduate and graduate level in Sociology and Criminal Justice at Curry College since 2000. Dr. O’Neil served as the Coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Curry College from 2008-2013. She is currently serving as the Chair of the Sociology and Criminal Justice Department.
LAUREN PETERSON
TIARA PHALON is a graduating senior at San Francisco State University where she is majoring in Africana Studies. Tiara is a Mother, Thespian, Poet, Activist, and Educator out of Oakland, CA. Her areas of focus are artistic literacy, radical healing and restorative justice.
RAJUL PUNJABI is a New York based entertainment journalist and adjunct instructor of English at Long Island University in Brooklyn. Her beat is hip hop, but she has written about fashion, pop culture, race, gender, and literature. Her byline has appeared in Playboy, VIBE, The Village Voice, Urbanology, Rap-Up, The Huffington Post, and on Billboard.com.
DAVID RICE is associate professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Morehouse College. At the College he also leads the asset-based Identity Orchestration Research Lab and serves as Co-Director of the Cinema, Television and Emerging Media Studies (CTEMS) program. David thinks and writes widely on issues concerning popular culture and social justice, is married and is the proud father of Biko.
AUTUMN ROBINSON is the Co-Executive Director of Breaking Silence: Passing the Mic to Our Daughters Project (BSPMD) documentary, an intergenerational film which explores self-esteem, self-awareness, self-preservation, and gender-based issues amongst black and Latina women in hip-hop. Autumn received her B.A. in Journalism & Communications from Hampton University and currently lives in Harlem.
DR. W. RUSSELL ROBINSON is a visiting assistant professor at North Carolina Central University in the department of Mass Communication. A student of critical race theory, feminist studies, and media studies he challenges his students to step out of their prescriptive learning norms. For more information please see his bio at http://about.me/w.russell_robinson.
KENDRA ROSS is a singer/songwriter and independent scholar who serves as the Director of Production Logistics at Universal Music Group. She received a Bachelor’s in Music Business and Technology from New York University and Master's degrees in Liberal Studies and Anthropology from Brooklyn College and The New School for Social Research, respectively.
SAVANNAH SHANGE is a joint doctoral candidate in Africana Studies and Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies circulated and lived forms of blackness using the tools of anthropology, Afro-pessimism, and queer of color critique. Her dissertation is an ethnographic study of blackness and social justice education in San Francisco.
CYNTHIA SPENCE is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Spelman College and the National Director of the UNCF/Mellon Programs. She has served in a variety of administrative positions at Spelman College, including Academic Dean. She is a Faculty Trustee for Spelman College, the Faculty Coordinator of the Spelman College Social Justice Fellows Program and the creator and professor of the course Violence Against Women. Cynthia has served on a number of social justice advocacy organizational boards including Men Stopping Violence and currently chairs the Board of Directors for Georgia Women for A Change.
NICOLE SYMMONDS, MDiv is a recent graduate of the Candler School of Theology where her coursework in ethics and feminist and womanist theology awakened a passion for the field of sexuality as it relates to these disciplines. She hopes to combine these interests in her future work in a doctoral program focusing on sexual ethics. Nicole currently resides in Atlanta where she works as the editor for UrbanFaith.com, a faith and culture site geared toward the black community.
ERICA C. TAYLOR, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Strategic, Legal and Management Communication in the School of Communications at Howard University. Her primary research interests include strategic and crisis communication, especially in the context of African-American public affairs; and social media best practices.
NICOLE TINSON is from South Central Los Angeles, CA and is a graduating senior majoring in Political Science at Dillard University. Nicole has completed mission work in Kingston, Jamaica and Tijuana, Mexico. Nicole intends to practice law and become an elected official to better serve and impact her community. Her areas of interest include gun violence, public education, homelessness, domestic and sexual violence, women's rights, school to prison pipeline and HIV AIDS/Awareness.
KIM MARIE VAZ, Ph.D. is professor of education and the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. She is the author of “The “Baby Dolls”: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition,” Louisiana State University Press, 2013. She is guest co-curator of the 2013 Louisiana State Museum Presbytere’s exhibit, “They Call Me Baby Doll: A Mardi Gras Tradition.”
SCYATTA A. WALLACE is an award winning Psychologist and expert on health and social issues impacting Black youth. She graduated from Yale University and received her PhD from Fordham University. She is an Associate Professor with tenure at St. John’s University and is Principle Investigator on several federally funded research studies.
JE-SHAWNA C. WHOLLEY is the newest Programs and Outreach Associate at the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC). She is also an active member of the organization’s Leadership Advisory Council, providing strategic insight on outreach and issues affecting Black LGBT young people.
WIND DELL WOODS holds a MFA in Playwriting and is currently a doctoral student at UC Irvine. His research examines Hip Hop aesthetics in modern theatre. He is also interested in the themes of death and rebirth in Hip Hop narratives and how they relate to issues of blackness and masculinity.
JUSTIN ZULLO is a PhD student in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. His research focuses on how Chicago-based community arts organizations mobilize hip hop performance as a form of critical pedagogy. A sound artist and hip hop music producer, Justin has worked on various sound designs projects, from interactive multimedia installations to ethnographic soundscaping.
BLACK YOUTH PROJECT 100 (BYP 100) is an activist member-based organization of 18-35 year olds, dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. We do this through building a network focused on transformative leadership development, non-violent direct action organizing, advocacy, and education.
JOY BOGGS , MA Women & Gender Studies from DePaul University, is an emerging scholar whose research concerns identity formation, production and performance in contemporary US culture with a particular emphasis on how these elements sharpen the politics of difference. President of the DePaul Women’s Network (DWN), Joy is a Public Voices Fellow, and is affiliated with the James & Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership.
KIMBERLY B. BONNER is a queer Black feminist theorist whose work examines the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality and nationalism. My core research focuses upon military institutions and queries the legitimate ties linking social, educational and global political economies to armed forces and connecting these entities to ordinary citizens internationally.
ROBIN BOYLORN, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama. She is the author of Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience and co-editor of Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life. She is also a member of the scholar-activist group, the Crunk Feminist Collective.
JASMINE BRITO is a Harlem native and Co-Executive Director of Breaking Silence Project: Passing the Mic to Our Daughters Project. Jasmine has worked in the music industry for over 10 years and currently serves as the Release Planner for RED Affiliated Labels a division of Sony Music Entertainment.
DR. SHANESHA R. F. BROOKS-TATUM is Visiting Scholar-in-Residence in Women’s Studies at Agnes Scott College and author of the forthcoming book, The Holy Hip-Hop Movement: Performance, Politics, and the Rise of E-Spirituality. She is Co-Editor of Reading African American Experiences in the Obama Era : Theory, Advocacy, Activism (2012) and Founder and Co-Chair of the Annual National Black Women’s Life Balance and Wellness Conference.
AISHIA BROWN is a current graduate student at Texas A&M University in the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences where she studies youth development. Her research interests include exploring the influence that hip-hop culture has on marginalized youth and how this influence can be used as a tool for empowerment.
EVETTE DIONE BROWN is cultural critic whose work has been published in The Root, UPTOWN and other publications. She’s also served as Clutch Magazine’s daily editor. Brown is a critical media studies scholar researching controlling images of Black American women. She’s currently a graduate student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
NUALA CABRAL is a Rhode Island native who is an educator, activist and award-winning filmmaker, who has taught media production and media literacy in high schools, colleges and community centers. In 2010, Nuala co-founded FAAN Mail (Fostering Activism & Alternatives Now!) a media literacy/activist project formed by women of color and based in Philadelphia. Nuala is also a member of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100), an activist organization dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people.
TARRELL CAMPBELL is an educator, social commentator, and artist. A native of St. Louis, Tarrell holds degrees from Stanford University, Webster University and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Currently, he is a doctoral student at Saint Louis University, where his research focuses on the representation of masculinity in twentieth century American literature.
CHARLENE CARRUTHERS is a political organizer and writer with over 10 years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work. Charlene currently serves as a national organizer for the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100). She lives on the South Side of Chicago and tweets at @CharleneCac.
CASSANDRA CHANEY is an Associate Professor in Child and Family Studies at Louisiana State University. She is broadly interested in the dynamics of Black family life, and focuses on the narratives of Blacks in dating, cohabiting, and married relationships, as well as the ways that religiosity and spirituality supports Blacks. In addition, she examines representations of Black couples and families in popular forms of mass media. She recently published the co-edited the book Black Women in Leadership: Their Historical and Contemporary Contributions with Dr. Dannielle Joy Davis.
MYISHA CHERRY teaches philosophy at John Jay College where she is also a Faculty Associate at the Institute For Criminal Justice Ethics. She is presently doing work in moral psychology and ethics with special interests in the nature and role of moral emotions, political emotions, and attitudes such as moral anger, forgiveness, and shame as well as the ethics of interpersonal relationships.
KIMBER CHEWNING is a senior Art History major at Florida State University, focusing on modern and contemporary art. She studies the relationship of new media to artistic practice and identity, as well as the intersections between “high” and “low” cultures. She takes classes in music and popular culture to supplement these interests.
VALERIE MEINERS COMEAUX is a lifelong Louisiana resident who was born and raised in Mandeville. She attended Louisiana State University where she earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum Theory with a focus on Aesthetics, Social Justice, and Democracy. A former English teacher, Valerie currently works in Baton Rouge as a curriculum writer and theatre coach.
DR. BRITTNEY COOPER is assistant professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. She is also co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, a hip hop generation feminist scholar-activist crew. Professor Cooper was named to The Root 100 for 2013, a list of top Black influencers.
CAROL CROUCH is a senior at Yale University majoring in Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies. She is interested in the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and performance. Carol is writing her thesis on the politics of respectability in Black lesbian communities, as framed through analysis of YouTube videos and etiquette manuals.
JADE CRUTCH is a student at Xavier University in New Orleans.
JESSICA DISU AKA FM SUPREME, 25, is an International Arts Management major at Columbia College Chicago. FM is the 2x champion of Louder Than A Bomb and an alumnus of Brave New Voices international youth poetry slam Future Corps program. FM Supreme has toured and performed across the United States, United Kingdom, The Netherlands and in December will journey to SE Asia as co-founder of The Peace Exchange: Chicago - Asia 2013. She is founder of CommonWealth Music Group, Chicago International Youth Peace Movement, HerStory and HisStory. FM Supreme was recently featured on BuzzFeed.com for "9 Underground Female Rappers U Need To Know.”
ABBY DOBSON is an independent scholar who received a JD degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor's degree from Williams College in Political Science and History. Also a professional singer-songwriter/recording artist/ culture producer, Abby released "Sleeping Beauty: You Are the One You Have Been Waiting On” on her LadyBraveBirdMusic label in 2010.
ANNEKE DUNBAR-GRONKE currently works as a project coordinator for Planned Parenthood in New Orleans and organizes with Nola 2 Angola, a non-profit bike ride fundraiser for the Cornerstone Builder’s Bus Project. Her studies have focused primarily on race versus class as determinants for incarceration. She is originally from Portland, OR.
ALISON FENSTERSTOCK is a staff writer at the New Orleans Times-Picayune and has written about Louisiana music for Oxford American, MOJO, Spin, and many others. Her multimedia exhibit and oral history collection on New Orleans hip-hop and bounce, Where They At, was featured at the Smithsonian-affiliated Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2010 and has traveled to Austin, New York, Minneapolis and Berlin. Fensterstock also serves as the program director for the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation, a roots music festival and educational organization in New Orleans.
VERNITA PEARL FORT is completing Ph.D. research on Music, Morality, Mind: Voices from Jamaica’s Music Community, Philosophy, and Neuroscience Intersect at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. While a US diplomat with USAID, she worked across 40 countries as an ecologist, economist and manager. She received degrees from Yale and Berkeley. She pursues dance/music/film as avocations and educational tools.
THERESA FOX, Founder of What Every Child Needs, has been presenting her comprehensive sexual health workshop Sex, Drugs & Hip-Hop since 2007. During these conversations she uses Spoken Word poetry, coupled with knowledge of current hip-hop messages and youth culture, to gain participants attention, their respect and their input. Her message is given in a non-heterosexist, LGBTQIP-inclusive fashion.
DEBORA FRIEDMANN has been studying street dance and hip-hop culture for the past four years. Currently studying Anthropology and Cultural Studies at Mcgill University she hopes to use her experience in hip-hop culture to expand her understanding of gender, race and the transmission of culture.
AZIZA HARDING is currently finishing her master’s degree in Media, Culture and Communications at NYU. She was educated in a primarily female environment throughout most of her life. Her research interests include the television business and its representation of blackness—primarily in regards to black women. In addition to obtaining her degree, she is working on a docu-series that focuses on contemporary issues in the black community.
HOLLY HOBBS is a PhD Candidate in ethnomusicology at Tulane University and founder of the NOLA Hiphop Archive, a digital archive of hiphop music/oral history. Hobbs is also a writer for the popular urban music blog The Smoking Section and KnowLA: the online encyclopedia of Louisiana Music and Culture. She currently serves as a consultant for the Tanzanian Heritage Project in Dar es Salaam and does musical consulting for documentary film. Her interests include musical activism, documentary filmmaking, and digital media literacy.
AJA HOLSTON is a senior Political Science major at Texas A&M and a member of the Black Youth Project 100. She strives to empower the voice of youth across the nation through interactive engagement. She also works from a Black feminist perspective and focuses on the relationships between Black women and their children, men & other women.
NATASHA HOWARD a recent graduate of Howard University’s Mass Communications and Media Studies with the Women’s Studies Graduate Certificate, is a freelance writer that teaches Communications courses at Montgomery College (Takoma Park, MD) and the Community College of Baltimore County. Her research interests include hip hop culture, images portrayed in music videos and reality television, and how race, gender, and sexuality are portrayed in the media and their effects on communication as a whole.
JAZZ HUDSON is an international Poet, Artist, & Educator who serves a host of communities seeking transformation through art. With a holistic approach to content & development, her interdisciplinary work engages audiences in dialogue and activism that extend beyond the page and stage. She is a recent recipient of the 2013 Oakland Indie Social Change Maker Award, as well as Poet Mentor Of The Month for Youth Speaks E-magazine. Jazz currently resides in Oakland, CA where she serves as a Poet Mentor/resident artist in several Bay Area schools and Organizations.
NELSON IGUNMA is a scholar and social entrepreneur based in New York City. Nelson is motivated by his diverse educational experiences to identify and level the internal and external barriers that impede our access to information, resources, and contacts, particularly for people from underserved populations.
MONIQUE JOHN is an activist specializing in black sexual politics and women’s rights. She works for Black Women's Blueprint and Impact Leadership 21, developing and promoting programming that combats sexual violence and advocates for women’s empowerment in the workforce. John is a recent Fordham graduate and blogs at moniquejohn.com.
AMBER JOHNSON, Ph.D, is Assistant Professor of Communication at Prairie View A&M. She merges qualitative and rhetorical research design in the study of intersectionality, sexuality, performance and digital media. She has published articles in several journals including Critical Studies in Media and Communication, Communication Quarterly, and Howard Journal of Communication. Her book, Messy Intersections: Navigating Cultural Terrain (Peter Lang, 2014) blends poetic narrative, autoethnography, and photography.
AMBER ROSE JOHNSON is currently a junior at Tufts University, double majoring in Education and African American studies. In 2010, Amber Rose became the Poetry Out Loud National Champion and since has been working as a teaching artist, artistic community organizer and spoken word coach for high school students in Boston.
KIMBERLY A. JOHNSON is a faculty associate at the University of Texas’ School of Public Health in Houston where she received her doctorate and manages a community-wide initiative to improve adolescent sexual health. Dr. Johnson is a native of St. Louis and a graduate of Hampton University and the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
KRISTIN KELLY is a graduate of Vanderbilt University Divinity School where she received her M. DIV and studied Social Christian Ethics and Black Church studies with a focus on Womanist theology. Kristin served as an intern for the Black Religious Scholars Group, VP of the Student Government and Academic Chair of S.H.A.D.E.S., (Serving, Helping and Affirming the Divinity in Every Sista’). Currently, Kristin is serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Fort Worth, TX.
DR. BRANDY N. KELLY PRYOR is an Assistant Professor in the Youth Development program at Texas A&M University in the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences where she received her Ph.D. Her interdisciplinary work focuses on the perception and performance of hope in marginalized youth populations domestically and abroad.
SETTI KIDANE is enrolled in the Cultural Analysis and Social Theory (MA) program at Wilfrid Laurier University, where you can find her (reluctantly) code-switching and side-eyeing everybody who utters an anglicized bastardization of her name. She passionately fights to protect black women’s right to live and be seen as complicated beings.
ONEKA LABENNETT is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University. LaBennett is the author of She’s Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn, and co-editor of Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century. An anthropologist, she has conducted oral histories of female Bronx hip hop artists.
DR. BRENDA W. LACEY 's teaching and commitment to student success expands her degrees in Special Education and American /Women's Studies. Her oral history of drill/step team performance contributed to the discourse on African American youth dance culture and she continues to explore the connection between academics and performing arts.
DR. TREVA B. LINDSEY is an Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. Her research and teaching interests include African American women’s history, black popular and expressive culture, black feminism(s), hip hop studies, critical race and gender theory, and sexual politics.
TIRHAKAH LOVE is a junior studying at Williams College. Double majoring in Political Science and American Studies with a concentration in Africana Studies, Love is interested in the variety of ways that popular culture rearticulates implicit capitalistic notions of oppression.
QRESCENT MALI MASON is doctoral candidate in the Philosophy Department at Temple University. Her dissertation focuses on the autobiographical writings of Simone de Beauvoir, the ethic of the erotic, and Black feminism. She teaches philosophy at Drexel University and Holy Family University. She loves food most of all.
BRYAN J. MCCANN is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Studies at LSU. His work on crime and public culture has appeared in several journals, including Critical Studies in Media Communication, Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, and Communication, Culture, & Critique. His current book project describes the role of gangsta rap in producing resistant discourses of criminality during the "war on crime" era of the late 1980s and 1990s. Professor McCann is also a longtime activist, whose work on death penalty and prison abolition, as well as labor and LGBTQ rights, informs his scholarship.
SABIA MCCOY-TORRES is a PhD candidate in sociocultural anthropology at Cornell University. Her research interests include: race, ethnicity, identity, the African-diaspora, reggae, hip-hop, and transnationalism with geographic focuses in the Caribbean basin and the U.S. She is also an occasional feature writer for the Caribbean music website LargeUp.com.
ALISHA MENZIES is a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida who plans to continue to publish works that examine issues of identity construction while honoring alternative voices. Her research examines the intersections of race, culture and identity among culturally oppressed people. She is interested in HIV/AIDS prevention and activism in communities, and views her research as a tool to facilitate social change and highlight the plight of underrepresented communities. She hopes to impact her field by bringing race and cultural issues to the intellectual agenda of a multicultural student body.
MELINDA MILLS is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, and the Coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Castleton State College in Vermont. Her research interests center around race, class, and gender in popular culture representations, multiracial identity formation, interracial relationships, and street harassment.
KRISTA MINCEY is an Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. Her research interests are in Black men’s health, health disparities, and mental health. She is particularly interested in what elements impact Black men’s health and their health behaviors such as female influence and masculinity.
DARLINE MORALES is a junior at University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying Political Science and Latin America Caribbean Studies, with a certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies. She is a spoken word artist, emcee, photographer and videographer, with a focus on societal and political issues that directly affect her community.
DELLA V. MOSLEY is a counseling psychology doctoral student at the University of Kentucky. She received her M.S. in school counseling from The John Hopkins University in 2011. Della's clinical and research interests include the holistic health and well-being of LGBTQ youth of color, interventions fostering positive youth development, and culturally mindful interpretations of personality assessments.
SONITA MOSS received a B.A. in Sociology and French at University of Michigan in 2010. While at Michigan, she took interest in the notion of intersectionality and the complexity of holding multiple identities simultaneously. Sonita is a first year Sociology PhD candidate and a William Fontaine fellow at University of Pennsylvania where she aims to explore experiences of racial identity in post-racial America.
SANDRA GEORGE O'NEIL earned her B.S. from Georgetown University (1995), her MA in Sociology (2000) and Ph.D. in Sociology (2005) from Boston College. She has taught at the undergraduate and graduate level in Sociology and Criminal Justice at Curry College since 2000. Dr. O’Neil served as the Coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Curry College from 2008-2013. She is currently serving as the Chair of the Sociology and Criminal Justice Department.
LAUREN PETERSON
TIARA PHALON is a graduating senior at San Francisco State University where she is majoring in Africana Studies. Tiara is a Mother, Thespian, Poet, Activist, and Educator out of Oakland, CA. Her areas of focus are artistic literacy, radical healing and restorative justice.
RAJUL PUNJABI is a New York based entertainment journalist and adjunct instructor of English at Long Island University in Brooklyn. Her beat is hip hop, but she has written about fashion, pop culture, race, gender, and literature. Her byline has appeared in Playboy, VIBE, The Village Voice, Urbanology, Rap-Up, The Huffington Post, and on Billboard.com.
DAVID RICE is associate professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Morehouse College. At the College he also leads the asset-based Identity Orchestration Research Lab and serves as Co-Director of the Cinema, Television and Emerging Media Studies (CTEMS) program. David thinks and writes widely on issues concerning popular culture and social justice, is married and is the proud father of Biko.
AUTUMN ROBINSON is the Co-Executive Director of Breaking Silence: Passing the Mic to Our Daughters Project (BSPMD) documentary, an intergenerational film which explores self-esteem, self-awareness, self-preservation, and gender-based issues amongst black and Latina women in hip-hop. Autumn received her B.A. in Journalism & Communications from Hampton University and currently lives in Harlem.
DR. W. RUSSELL ROBINSON is a visiting assistant professor at North Carolina Central University in the department of Mass Communication. A student of critical race theory, feminist studies, and media studies he challenges his students to step out of their prescriptive learning norms. For more information please see his bio at http://about.me/w.russell_robinson.
KENDRA ROSS is a singer/songwriter and independent scholar who serves as the Director of Production Logistics at Universal Music Group. She received a Bachelor’s in Music Business and Technology from New York University and Master's degrees in Liberal Studies and Anthropology from Brooklyn College and The New School for Social Research, respectively.
SAVANNAH SHANGE is a joint doctoral candidate in Africana Studies and Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies circulated and lived forms of blackness using the tools of anthropology, Afro-pessimism, and queer of color critique. Her dissertation is an ethnographic study of blackness and social justice education in San Francisco.
CYNTHIA SPENCE is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Spelman College and the National Director of the UNCF/Mellon Programs. She has served in a variety of administrative positions at Spelman College, including Academic Dean. She is a Faculty Trustee for Spelman College, the Faculty Coordinator of the Spelman College Social Justice Fellows Program and the creator and professor of the course Violence Against Women. Cynthia has served on a number of social justice advocacy organizational boards including Men Stopping Violence and currently chairs the Board of Directors for Georgia Women for A Change.
NICOLE SYMMONDS, MDiv is a recent graduate of the Candler School of Theology where her coursework in ethics and feminist and womanist theology awakened a passion for the field of sexuality as it relates to these disciplines. She hopes to combine these interests in her future work in a doctoral program focusing on sexual ethics. Nicole currently resides in Atlanta where she works as the editor for UrbanFaith.com, a faith and culture site geared toward the black community.
ERICA C. TAYLOR, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Strategic, Legal and Management Communication in the School of Communications at Howard University. Her primary research interests include strategic and crisis communication, especially in the context of African-American public affairs; and social media best practices.
NICOLE TINSON is from South Central Los Angeles, CA and is a graduating senior majoring in Political Science at Dillard University. Nicole has completed mission work in Kingston, Jamaica and Tijuana, Mexico. Nicole intends to practice law and become an elected official to better serve and impact her community. Her areas of interest include gun violence, public education, homelessness, domestic and sexual violence, women's rights, school to prison pipeline and HIV AIDS/Awareness.
KIM MARIE VAZ, Ph.D. is professor of education and the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. She is the author of “The “Baby Dolls”: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition,” Louisiana State University Press, 2013. She is guest co-curator of the 2013 Louisiana State Museum Presbytere’s exhibit, “They Call Me Baby Doll: A Mardi Gras Tradition.”
SCYATTA A. WALLACE is an award winning Psychologist and expert on health and social issues impacting Black youth. She graduated from Yale University and received her PhD from Fordham University. She is an Associate Professor with tenure at St. John’s University and is Principle Investigator on several federally funded research studies.
JE-SHAWNA C. WHOLLEY is the newest Programs and Outreach Associate at the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC). She is also an active member of the organization’s Leadership Advisory Council, providing strategic insight on outreach and issues affecting Black LGBT young people.
WIND DELL WOODS holds a MFA in Playwriting and is currently a doctoral student at UC Irvine. His research examines Hip Hop aesthetics in modern theatre. He is also interested in the themes of death and rebirth in Hip Hop narratives and how they relate to issues of blackness and masculinity.
JUSTIN ZULLO is a PhD student in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. His research focuses on how Chicago-based community arts organizations mobilize hip hop performance as a form of critical pedagogy. A sound artist and hip hop music producer, Justin has worked on various sound designs projects, from interactive multimedia installations to ethnographic soundscaping.