Team

Ezekiel Dixon-Román is Professor of Critical Race, Media, & Educational Studies and Director of the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study. He is also co-founder and Director of the Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational, & Mixed Methodologies and the Critical Computation Bureau. He joined the Teachers College faculty on January 1 2023 from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice.

His research program makes critical interventions towards re-theorizing the technologies and practices of quantification that he understands as mediums and agencies of sociopolitical systems, whereby race and other assemblages of difference are byproducts. He is particularly interested in how power generates difference, especially in bodily capacities to change and be changed. His research question addresses how sociotechnical systems of quantification work on, with, and in the body to produce racialized demarcations, which decide which bodily capacities to regenerate and which to debilitate. Dixon-Román argues that, in the ‘computational turn’ of global neoliberal racial capitalism, the biopolitics of statistical demarcations of bodies forms and shapes the movement and flow of power and sociopolitical relations. As such, his research is invested in speculative questions of futurity that rethink technologies of quantification toward onto-epistemologies other-wise. He engages with philosophical and methodological interventions toward developing alternative modes of inquiry and practices of quantification that might enable critical space for reconstituting sociopolitical relations and the movement and flow of social life.

Dr. Dixon-Román is the author of Inheriting Possibility: Social Reproduction & Quantification in Education (2017, University of Minnesota Press). In this book project, he reconceptualizes quantification and theories of social reproduction in education from a cultural theoretical lens that posits culture is nature and the human is one of myriad expressions of Earth’s becoming. Inheriting Possibility received the 2018 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association.

He also co-edited Thinking Comprehensively About Education: Spaces of Educative Possibility and Their Implications for Public Policy (2012, Routledge) and more recently Black Radical Love: A New Black Reconstruction through the Thought & Activism of Edmund W. Gordon (2023, Third World Press). In addition, he co-guest edited “Alternative Ontologies of Number: Rethinking the Quantitative in Computational Culture” (2016, Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies), “The computational turn in education research: Critical and creative perspectives on the digital data deluge” (2017, Research in Education), “Control Societies @30: Technopolitical Forces and Ontologies of Difference” (2020, Social Text Online), and “Dialogues on Recursive Colonialism, Speculative Computation, and the Techno-Social” (2021, eflux journal). He is currently working on two book projects: (1) a co-edited collection, Recursive Colonialisms: Technology, Culture, Politics and (2) an authored book project, Haunting Algorithms: Algorithmic Governance and Logics of Colonialism, that examines the haunting formations of the transparent subject in algorithmic governance and the potential transformative technopolitical systems open to ontoepistemologies other-wise.

He is also a co-editor of the Duke University Press book series, “Anima: Critical Race Studies Otherwise”, and associate editor of the 2023 and 2025 volumes of the Review of Research in Education, one of the flagship journals for the American Educational Research Association.

He is co-founder and co-Director of the Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational, & Mixed Methodologies as well as The Critical Computation Bureau.

Publications 

Books 

Dixon-Román, E., Lee, C.D., Madhubuti, H.R., Rice, D.W. (Eds.) 2023. Black Radical Love: A New Black Reconstruction through the Thought & Activism of Edmund W. Gordon. Chicago IL: Third World Press.

Dixon-Román, E. 2017. Inheriting Possibility: Social Reproduction and Quantification in Education. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Dixon-Román, E. & Gordon, E. W. (Eds.) 2012. Thinking Comprehensively About Education: Spaces of Educative Possibility and Their Implications for Public Policy. New York NY: Routledge.

Select Journal Articles

Nichols, T. P., & Dixon-Román, E. (Accepted). “Platform governance and education policy: Power and politics in emerging edtech ecologies.” Educational Evaluation & Policy Analysis.

Dixon-Román, E. with Arlene Fernandez, Julian Quiros, & Nicole Sansone. 2022. Diffracting Boundaries: Toward Post-Philosophies of Quantification and the Black Radical Tradition. Qualitative Inquiry (For a Special Issue on “Post-Philosophies”).

Dixon-Román, E. with Ramon Amaro. 2021. “Haunting, Blackness, & Algorithmic Thought.” e-flux journal 123: 1-11.  (special issue on “Dialogues on Recursive Colonialism, Speculative Computation, and the Techno-Social.”) https://www.e-flux.com/journal/123/437244/haunting-blackness-and-algorithmic-thought/

Dixon-Román, E. with Jasbir Puar. 2021. “Mass Debilitation & Algorithmic Governance.” e-flux journal 123: 1-11.  (special issue on “Dialogues on Recursive Colonialism, Speculative Computation, and the Techno-Social.”) https://www.e-flux.com/journal/123/436945/mass-debilitation-and-algorithmic-governance/

Jocson, K. & Dixon-Román, E. 2021. Becoming Shuri: CTE, Racializing Affect, and the Becoming-Technologist. Reading Research Quarterly 56(2): 257-271.

Parisi, L. & Dixon-Román, E. 2020. Recursive Colonialism & Cosmo-Computation. Social Text Online. 

Dixon-Román, E. 2020. A Haunting Logic of Psychometrics: Toward the Speculative and Indeterminacy of Blackness in Measurement. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice 39(3): 94-96.

Dixon-Román, E., Phil Nichols, & Ama Nyame-Mensah. 2020. The Racializing Forces of/in AI Educational Technologies. Learning, Media & Technology 45(3): 236-250. (Special Issue on “AI and Education: critical perspectives and alternative futures”)

Dixon-Román, E., Nyame-Mensah, Ama, and Russell, Allison. 2019. Algorithmic Legal Reasoning as Racializing Assemblages. Computational Culture: A Journal of Software Studies 7: 1-41. http://computationalculture.net/algorithmic-legal-reasoning-as-racializing-assemblages/.

Leonardo, Z., and Dixon-Román, E. 2018. Post-Colorblindness; Or, Racialized Speech after Symbolic Racism. Educational Philosophy and Theory 50(14): 1386.

Dixon-Román, E. 2017. Regenerative Capacities: New Materialisms, Inheritance, and Biopolitical Technologies in Education Policy. Equity & Excellence in Education 50(4): 434-445.

Dixon-Román, E. 2017. Toward A Hauntology on Data: On The Sociopolitical Forces of Data Assemblages.Research in Education 98(1): 44-58.

de Freitas, E., and Dixon-Román, E. 2017. The computational turn in education research: Critical and creative perspectives on the digital data deluge. Research in Education 98(1): 3-13.

Dixon-Román, E. 2016. Diffractive Possibilities: Cultural Studies and Quantification. Transforming Anthropology24(2):157-167.

de Freitas, E., Dixon-Román, E., and Lather, P. (listed alphabetically) 2016. Alternative Ontologies of Number: Rethinking the Quantitative in Computational Culture. Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies 16(5): 431-434.

Dixon-Román, E. 2016. Algo-Ritmo: More-Than-Human Performative Acts and the Racializing Assemblages of Algorithmic Architectures. Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies 16(5):482-490.

Select Book Chapters

Dixon-Román, E. (In Press) “Algorithmic Governance & Racializaing Affect.” in Affect Theory Reader 2: Worlding, Tensions, Futures. Gregory Seigworth & Carolyn Pedwell (eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Dixon-Román, E. 2023. “Exteriority, Black Noise & the Computational Accident.” In J. Brouwer & S. V. Tuinen (Eds.), technological accidents, accidental technologies. Rotterdam NL: V2_PUBLISHING.

Madaio, Michael, Mayfield, Elijah, Blodgett, Su Lin, & Dixon-Román, Ezekiel. 2023. “ Beyond “Fairness:” Structural (In)Justice Lenses on AI for Education" In Wayne Holmes and Kaśka Porayska-Pomsta (Eds.), The Ethics of AI in Education: Data, algorithms, equity and biases, in educational contexts.

Parisi, L., & Dixon-Román, E. 2020. Data capitalism, sociogenic prediction and recursive indeterminacies. In P. Mörtenböck and H. Mooshammer (Eds.), Data Publics: Public Plurality in an Era of Data Determinacy. (pp. 48-62). New York, NY: Routledge.

Dixon-Román, E., Jackson, John L., & McKinney de Royston, M. 2020. Deconstructing the Quantitative-Qualitative Divide: Toward A New Empiricism. In Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning. Na’ilah Nasir, Carol D. Lee, Roy Pea, and Maxine McKinney de Royston (Eds.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Ph.D. is a Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the 2024 New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development's Dorothy Height Distinguished Alumni Award winner. Her research has appeared in several top-tier academic journals. She is co-editor of five books and is co-author of the multiple award-winning book Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces (2021) where she examines her concept of Archeology of Self ™ in education. For three years in a row, she was named one of EdWeek's EduScholar Influencers -- a list of the Top 1% of educational scholars in the United States -- a highly selective group of 200 scholars (chosen from a pool of 20,000).

At Teachers College, she is the founder of the Racial Literacy Project @TC, and the Racial Literacy Roundtables Series, where for 15 years, national scholars, teachers, and students facilitate conversations around race and other issues involving diversity. Yolanda appeared in Spike Lee’s “2 Fists Up: We Gon’ Be Alright” (2016), a documentary about the Black Lives Matter movement and the campus protests at Mizzou, and "Defining Us, Children at the Crossroads of Change, a documentary about supporting and educating the nation's Black and Latinae male youth. Yolanda's first full-length collection of poetry, Love from the Vortex & Other Poems, was published in March 2020. Her sophomore book of poetry, The Peace Chronicles, was published in July, 2021. Yolanda opened the 2022 TEDx UPENN conference at the University of Pennsylvania with her TEDx Talk: Truth, Love & Racial Literacy. 

Selected Publications:

Recent single and co-authored books

Price-Dennis, D., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). Advancing racial literacies in teacher education: Activism for equity in digital spaces. Teachers College Press

Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). The peace chronicles. Kaleidoscope Vibrations LLC.

Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2020). Love from the vortex and other poems. Kaleidoscope Vibrations LLC.

Recent edited books:

Hucks, D. C., Sealey-Ruiz, Y., Showmuni, V., Carothers, S. C., & Lewis, C. (2022). Purposeful teaching and learning in diverse contexts: Education for access, equity, and achievement. Information Age Publishing.

Ellis, A. Bryan, N., Sealey-Ruiz, Y., Toldson, I., & Emdin, C. (2021). The Impact of classroom practices: Teacher educators’ reflections or culturally relevant teaching. Information Age Publishing.

Ford, D., Lawson-Davis, J., Trotman-Frazier, M., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2017). Gumbo for the soul: Liberating memoirs and stories to inspire Females of Color. Information Age Publishing.

Recent articles in referred journals

*published with doctoral student(s)

**published with high school students | undergraduates | teachers

Alvarez, A. J., Sealey-Ruiz, Y. & Acosta, A. (2023) Racial trauma literacy for ELA teachers in U.S. public schools. NCTE Special Issues Series, Trauma-informed teaching: Toward responsive, humanizing classrooms (vol. 2).

*Liu, D., Beauzil, D., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2023). A narrative approach to defining our identity as academic writers: Reflecting on academic language through linguistic solidarity. Multicultural Perspectives (Special issue on Radical and Liberatory Academic Writing: Speaking Truth to People and Power for Revolutionary Purpose )

*Animashaun, O., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2022). Time traveling forward and backwards: Multimodal speculation as racial literacy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.

*Bell, J., Zaino, K., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2023). Racial literacy entry. In L. M. Barker, D. Gorlewski, J. Gorlewski, & C. Miller (Eds.), Encyclopedia of English language arts education. Brill.

*Bell, J., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2023). Politics, poetry, and the pro-Black classroom. Comparative Education Review (Special Issue on Black Lives Matter and Global Struggles for Racial Justice in Education).

*Ruiz, O. I., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2023). Our journey toward racial literacy: A mother and daughter’s story. (Inaugural special issue of Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy titled Adolescents, Adults, and Their Literacies: Reframing Child-Parent Research).

*Bell, J., Zaino, K., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2022). Diggin’ in the racial literacy crates: Equity, Excellence and Education. doi:10.1080/10665684.2022.2064354; https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2022.2064354

**Naputi, V., Mitchell, D., Pastrana, A., Ross, A., Hernandez-Ruiz, M., Tejeda, A., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2022). The curriculum is in us: Using the cypher to create a love-based curriculum for youth by youth. Language Arts.

 **Naputi, V., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2022). From writing for full presence to writing curriculum: The power of friendship, poetry and the cypher. Language Arts.

Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2022). An archaeology of Self™ for our times: Another talk to teachers. English Journal, 115(5), 21-26.

• Awarded: NCTE 2022 English Journal Edwin M. Hopkins Outstanding Article, Honorable Mention

Baxley, G., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). In the Black radical tradition: Poetry as a praxis for healing and resistance in education. Research in the Teaching of English, 55(3), 311-321.

Baxley, G., Sealey-Ruiz, Y., Rogers, C., Campano, G., Thomas, E. E., & Stornaiuolo, A. (2021). “You can still fight”: The Black radical tradition, healing, and literacies. Editorial Introduction. Research in the Teaching of English, 55(3), 213-215.

Mentor, M., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). Doing the deep work of antiracist pedagogy: Toward self-excavation for equitable classroom teaching. Language Arts, 99(1).

*Ortiz, E., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). Racially literate teaching in the writing classroom. Literacy Today.

Player, G. D., Ybarra, M. G., Brochin, C., et al. (2021, April). “We are our only way forward”: Dialogic re-imaginings and the cultivation of homeplace for girls, women, and femmes of color. Urban Education. doi:10.1177/004208 59211003931

Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). Racial literacy poetics for the academy and beyond. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 17(1), 1-5.

Sealey-Ruiz, Y., & Reid, S. (2021). The matter of all Black lives. Afterword: Special Issue on Black Lives Matter. International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches.

Haddix, M., McArthur, S. A., Muhammad, G. E., Price-Dennis, D., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). Provocateur pieces: At the kitchen table: Black women English educators speaking our truths. In T. L. Lynch (Ed.), Special Issue, Volume 1: Critical Media Literacy: Bringing Lives to Text (pp. 47-55). National Council of Teachers of English. (Reprint)

Muhammad, G. E., Dunmeyer, A., Starks, F. D., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2020). Historical voices for contemporary times: Learning from Black women educational theorists to redesign teaching and teacher education. Theory into Practice, 59(4). Themed issue: Black women’s work: Exploring pipelines, pedagogies, policies, and practices (Eds. A. Farinde, A. Allen-Handy, & V. Hill-Jackson).

Professor Sonya Douglass examines the problem of racial inequality in K-12 schools and how race is conceptualized and understood by leaders for equity and social justice in the U.S. She is particularly interested in how education leaders come to know race within equity, diversity, and inclusion discourses and how this knowledge informs and is informed by their leadership ideologies, epistemologies, and practices.

Her interests include: education policy, politics, and leadership; school segregation and desegregation; critical race theory in education; Black and African American education and leadership; and leadership for social justice.

Selected Publications:  

Books 

Douglass Horsford, S., Scott, J., & Anderson, G. (2019). The politics of education policy in an era of inequality: Possibilities for democratic schooling. New York: Routledge.

Douglass Horsford, S., & Tillman, L. C. (Eds.). (2014). Intersectional identities and educational leadership of Black women in the USA. Abingdon: Routledge.

Wilson, C. M., & Douglass Horsford, S. (Eds.). (2013). Advancing equity and achievement in America’s diverse schools: Inclusive theories, policies, and practices. New York: Routledge.

Douglass Horsford, S. (2011). Learning in a burning house: Educational inequality, ideology, and (dis)integration. New York: Teachers College Press. [2013 Critics’ Choice Award, American Educational Studies Association; 2^nd printing].

Douglass Horsford, S. (Ed.) (2010). New perspectives in educational leadership: Exploring social, political, and community contexts and meaning. New York: Peter Lang.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Douglass Horsford, S. (2019). School integration in the New Jim Crow: Opportuity or oxymoron? Educational Policy. PEA Yearbook 2019.

Douglass Horsford, S. (2017). Making America’s schools great now: Reclaiming democracy and activist leadership under Trump. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 50(1).

Sampson, C., & Douglass Horsford, S. (2017). Putting the public back into public education: Community advocacy and education leadership under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Journal of School Leadership, 27(5), 725-754.

Douglass Horsford, S.. (2017). A race to the top from the bottom of the well? The paradox of race in U.S. education reform. The Educational Forum, 81(2), 136-147.

Douglass Horsford, S., & Powell, K. (2016). Second Chances Academy: Alternative school or pathway to prison? Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 19(1), 18-27.

Douglass Horsford, S. (2016). Social justice for the advantaged: Freedom from racial equality post-Milliken. Teachers College Record, 118(3), 1-18.

Douglass Horsford, S., & D’Amico, D. (2015). The past as more than prologue: A call for historical research. International Journal of Educational Management, 29(7), 863-873.

Douglass Horsford, S., & Sampson, C. (2014). Promise Neighborhoods: The politics and promise of community capacity building as urban school reform. Urban Education, 49(8), 955-991.

Douglass Horsford, S. (2014). When race enters the room: Improving leadership and learning through racial literacy. Theory into Practice, 53(1), 123-130.

Douglass Horsford, S., Sampson, C., & Forletta, F. M. (2013). School resegregation in the Mississippi of the West: Community counternarratives on the return to neighborhood schools in Las Vegas, Nevada, 1968-1994. Teachers College Record, 115(11), 1-28.

Douglass Horsford, S. (2012). This bridge called my leadership: An essay on Black women as bridge leaders in education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21(5), 11-22.

Douglass Horsford, S., Grosland, T., & Gunn, K. M. (2011). Pedagogy of the personal and professional: Toward a framework for culturally relevant leadership. Journal of School Leadership, 21(4), 582-606.

Douglass Horsford, S. (2011). Vestiges of desegregation: Superintendent perspectives on inequality and (dis)integration in the post-Civil Rights Era. Urban Education, 46(1), 34-54.

Douglass Horsford, S. (2010). Mixed feelings about mixed schools: Superintendents on the complex legacy of school desegregation. Educational Administration Quarterly, 46(3), 287-321.

Douglass Horsford, S. (2010). Black superintendents on educating Black students in separate and unequal contexts. The Urban Review, 42(1), 58-79.

Selected Publications:  

Mensah, F.M., Quince, C.L., & James, W. (2024). Program design and exemplary cases for preparing teachers of color and indigenous teachers. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 32(54), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.32.8468

Riley, A.D., & Mensah, F.M. (2024). “Things your history teacher won't teach you: Science edition”: Black women science teachers as anti‐racist teachers. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 61(4), 809-840. DOI: 10.1002/tea.21912  

Riley, A.D., & Mensah, F.M. (2022). “My curriculum has no soul!”: A case study of the experiences of black women science teachers working at charter schools. Journal of Science Teacher Education. DOI: 1080/1046560X.2022.2028710

Mensah, M. (2022). Educating Klaren: Neoliberal ideology in teacher education impacting candidate preparation and the teaching of science to Black students. Cultural Studies of Science Education, CADASE Special Issue on African American Students and STEM Education. DOI: 10.1007/s11422-022-10111-w

Mensah, F.M. (2022). “Now, I see”: Multicultural science curriculum as transformation and social action. The Urban Review, 54, 155-181. DOI: 1007/s11256-021-00602-5

Chen, J.L., & Mensah, F.M. (2022). Toward socially just science teaching through professional development: The science teacher identity development and agency of two elementary teachers of color. Science Education, 106(2), 385-411. http://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21699

Mensah, F.M. (2021). Preparing teachers for racial literacy and anti-racist teaching. Science Teacher Education, 90(November), 9-15.

Gist, C.D., Bristol, T.J., Mensah, F.M., & Philip, T. M. (2021). Committing to racial justice and equity in teacher preparation (pp. 14-17). Kapan Special Report, Building a More Ethnoracially Diverse Teaching Force: New Directions in Research, Policy, and Practice.

Mensah, F.M. (2021). “Now, I see”: Multicultural science curriculum as transformation and social action. The Urban Review. DOI: 1007/s11256-021-00602-5

Rosa, K., & Mensah, F.M. (2021). Decoloniality in STEM research: (re)framing success. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 16, 501-508. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-020-10008-6

Serpagli, L., & Mensah, F.M. (2021). Keeping up with the digital natives: Using social media in an all-girls’ science classroom. School Science and Mathematics Journal, 121(5), 28-289. http://doi.org/10.1111/ssm.12471

Mensah, F.M. (2021). Culturally relevant and culturally responsive teaching in the elementary science classroom. Guest Editorial. NSTA Science Scope, March/April, 58(4).

Levy, A.R., & Mensah, F.M. (2021). Learning through the experience of water in elementary school science. Water, 13(43), 1-31.https://doi.org/3390/w13010043

Watkins, S.E., & Mensah, F.M. (2019). Peer support and STEM success for one African American female engineer. Journal of Negro Education, 88(2), 181-193. DOI: 10.7709/jnegroeducation.88.2.0181

Mensah, F.M. (2019). Finding voice and passion: Critical race theory methodology in science teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 56(4), 1412-1456. DOI: 10.3102/0002831218818093

Chen, J., & Mensah, F.M. (2018). Teaching contexts that influence elementary preservice teachers’ teacher and science teacher identity development. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 29(5), 420-439. DOI: 1080/1046560X.2018.1469187  

Mensah, F.M., Brown, J., Titu, P., Rozowa, P., Sivaraj, R., & Heydari. R. (2018). Preservice and inservice teachers’ ideas of multiculturalism: Explorations across two science methods courses in two different contexts. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 29(2), 128-147. DOI: 1046560X.2018.1425820

Mensah, F. M., & Jackson, I. (2018). Whiteness as property in science teacher education. Teachers College Record, 120(1), 1-38. http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 21958.

Ashby, P., & Mensah, F. M. (2018). Ashby, P., & Mensah, F. M. (2018). Critical chemistry education in a private, suburban high school.  Research in Science Education, 1-30. DOI: 10.1007/s11165-018-9690-2

Underwood, J.B., & Mensah, F.M. (2018). An investigation of science teacher educators’ perceptions of culturally relevant pedagogy. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 28(1), 46-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2017.1423457

Taher, T., Mensah, F.M., & Emdin, C. (2017). Exploring the impact of reality pedagogy: Understanding its implementation on urban immigrant students. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 5(11), 1853-1862. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2017.051101 

Rosa, K., & Mensah, F.M. (2016). Educational pathways of Black women physicists: Stories of life.  Physical Review Physics Education Research, 12(1), 020113-15.

Dr. Christopher Emdin is the Maxine Greene Chair for Distinguished Contributions to Education and Professor of Science Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is also the  Director of Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship At the STEAM DREAM and Ideal Lab.

He previously served as Robert Naslund Endowed Chair in Curriculum Theory at the University of Southern California, where he was Director of Youth and Community Partnerships at the USC Race and Equity Center.

Dr. Emdin is an alumni fellow at the Hip-hop Archive and Hutchins Center at Harvard University, Scholar in Residence at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and was STEAM Ambassador for the U.S. Department of State and Minorities in Energy Ambassador for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Dr. Emdin holds a Ph.D in Urban Education with a concentration in Mathematics, Science, and Technology; Masters degrees in both Natural Sciences and Education and Bachelors degrees in Physical Anthropology, Biology, and Chemistry.

He is the creator of the HipHopEd social media movement, Science Genius BATTLES and the CREATE Accelerator – an initiative that funds non-profits focused on culture and education. He has been named one of the 27 people bridging divides in the United States by Time magazine and the Root 100 lis of most influential African Americans.

He is the author of numerous award winning works; including the Strage Prize awardee, Urban Science Education for the Hip-hop Generation and the New York Times bestseller, For White Folks Who Teach In the Hood and the Rest of Ya’ll too. His latest books are STEM STEAM Make Dream and Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Success.

Publications

1. Souto-Manning, M., & Emdin, C. (2023). On the harm inflicted by urban teacher education programs: Learning from the historical trauma experienced by teachers of color. Urban Education, 58(6), 1238-1270. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042085920926249 
2. Levy, I. P., Emdin, C., & Adjapong, E. (2022). Lyric writing as an emotion processing intervention for school counselors: Hip-Hop Spoken Word Therapy and Motivational Interviewing. Journal of Poetry Therapy, 35(2), 114-130. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08893675.2021.2004372 
3. Emdin, C. (2021). Ratchetdemic: Reimagining academic success. Beacon Press. 
4. Emdin, C. (2020). A ratchetdemic reality pedagogy and/as cultural freedom in urban education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52(9), 947-960. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131857.2019.1669446
5.  Emdin, C., Adjapong, E., & Levy, I. P. (2021, July). On science genius and cultural agnosia: Reality pedagogy and/as Hip-Hop rooted cultural teaching in STEM Education. In The Educational Forum (Vol. 85, No. 4, pp. 391-405). Routledge. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131725.2021.1957636