Gloria Jean Ladson-Billings FBA is an American pedagogical theorist and teacher educator known for her work in the fields of culturally relevant pedagogy and critical race theory, and the pernicious effects of systemic racism and economic inequality on educational opportunities. Her book The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African-American Children is a significant text in the field of education. Ladson-Billings is Professor Emerita and formerly the Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, commonly known as Penn GSE, is an Ivy League top-ranked educational research school in the United States. Formally established as a department in 1893 and a school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1915, Penn GSE has historically had research strengths in teaching and learning, the cultural contexts of education, language education, quantitative research methods, and practitioner inquiry. Katharine Strunk is the current dean of Penn GSE; she succeeded Pam Grossman in 2023.
Marguerite Ross Barnett was the eighth president of the University of Houston and a former chancellor of the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Barnett was the first African American woman to lead a major American university.
Antonia Darder is a Puerto Rican and American scholar, artist, poet and activist. She holds the Leavey Presidential Endowed Chair in Ethics and Moral Leadership in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University. She also is Professor Emerita of Educational Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy is Dean and Distinguished Professor of Education in the School of Education at American University in Washington, DC. Previously, she was Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), and a professor of Counseling and Human Development at the JHU School of Education. She was an affiliate faculty member in the Center for Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Holcomb-McCoy is a graduate of Hampton (VA) High School.
Vivian Winona Pinn is an American physician-scientist and pathologist known for her advocacy of women's health issues and concerns, particularly for ensuring that federally funded medical studies include female patients, and well as encouraging women to follow medical and scientific careers. She served as associate director for research on women's health at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), concurrently was the inaugural director of NIH's Office of Research on Women's Health. Pinn previously taught at Harvard University, Tufts University, and Howard University College of Medicine. Since retiring from NIH in 2011, Pinn has continued working as a senior scientist emerita at the Fogarty International Center.
James L. Moore III is the Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer of The Ohio State University. He also serves as executive director of the Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male and is the inaugural College of Education and Human Ecology Distinguished Professor of Urban Education. Moore co-founded the International Colloquium on Black Males in Education. From 2015 to 2017, Moore served as the rotating program director for Broadening Participation in Engineering in the Engineering directorate at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia. In 2018 the Dr. James L. Moore III Scholars Program, established by Missy and Bob Weiler, was created to support undergraduate students transferring from Columbus State Community College to Ohio State University.
Shaun Harper is an American scholar on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the United States. He is a Provost Professor in the Rossier School of Education, Marshall School of Business, and Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California.
Maya D. Wiley is an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist. She has served as president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights since May 2022. Wiley served as counsel to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. She chaired the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) from 2016 to 2017. She was an MSNBC legal analyst from August 2018 to January 2021. Wiley ran in the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, placing third.
Ibram Xolani Kendi is an American author, professor, anti-racist activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in the U.S. He is author of books including Stamped from the Beginning, How to Be an Antiracist and Antiracist Baby. Kendi was included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
Ivory Achebe Toldson is an American academic and author. He is a professor of Counseling Psychology at Howard University, national director of Education Innovation and Research for the NAACP, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Negro Education, and executive editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Research, published by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. He is formally the president of Quality Education for Minorities. He served as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (WHIHBCUs) under President Barack Obama.
Margaret Constance Simms is a 21st century American economist whose work focuses on the economic well being of African Americans.
Tania Israel is an American psychologist and professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Her research focuses on the development and implementation of interventions to support the mental health and well-being of LGBTQ individuals and communities. Israel has presented about dialogue across political lines and is the author of Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide, Skills and Strategies for Conversations That Work. She is also known for writing song lyrics, memoir, and bisexual haiku.
Ruby Takanishi was a developmental psychologist known for her efforts in developing early childhood education policies and advocacy work on behalf of the behavioral sciences.
Ofelia García (Otheguy) is Professor Emerita in the Ph.D. programs of Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures (LAILAC) and Urban Education at Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is best known for her work on bilingualism, translanguaging, language policy, sociolinguistics, and sociology of language. Her work emphasizes dynamic multilingualism, which is developed through "an interplay between the individual’s linguistic resources and competences as well as the social and linguistic contexts she/he is a part of." Rather than viewing a bilingual's languages as autonomous, García views language practices as complex and interrelated, as reflecting a single linguistic system.
Michelle Evelyn Morse is an American internist. She is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women's Hospital and co-founded EqualHealth and Social Medicine Consortium. In 2021, Morse was named the first Chief Medical Officer of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Patricia Silveyra is an Argentine-American lung physiologist, professor, and chair of Environmental and Occupational Health at Indiana University School of Public Health. Her research interests include sex differences in innate immunity, lung disease, air pollution exposure effects, and mechanisms by which sex hormones control lung immunity.
Vivian Lynette Gadsden is an American psychologist who is an education researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research considers the social and cultural factors that affect learning and literacy. She is interested in intergenerational learning within African-American families.
Laura W. Perna is an American academic who is GSE Centennial Professor of Education, Founding Executive Director of the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy, and Vice Provost for Faculty at the University of Pennsylvania.
Adrienne Denise Dixson is an American educational theorist who heads the department of educational policy studies in the Penn State College of Education.
