Presenters

Shamara is interested in the ways Rastafari women create transgeographic anti-oppressive communities through daily anti-colonial acts. She is particularly interested in thinking through ways that Rastafari women use spirituality and self-making to articulate new symbolic and material orders premised upon sovereignty and freedom even in the context of neocolonial/neoliberal deployments of white supremacy, anti-Black genocide, and gendered racism.

Andrea N. Baldwin is an associate professor in the Divisions of Gender and Ethnic Studies in the School for Cultural and Social Transformation, and a 2023-2024 Presidential Fellow at the University of Utah. Dr. Baldwin is the founder of the Black Feminist Eco Lab at the University of Utah. She has several publications including her 2021 monograph, A Decolonial Black Feminist Theory of Reading and Shade: Feeling the University.  Dr. Baldwin was born and raised in Barbados and considers herself an all-around Caribbean woman who loves everything coconut and soca.

Kumani Asha Bey is an author, activist, and filmmaker who focuses on uplifting women within the Black and LGBTQIA+ community. They are currently attending the University of North Carolina Greensboro pursuing a degree in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.

Tivia Collins is an Assistant Professor in the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at Wake Forest University. Her research and teaching centres black transnational and diasporic feminisms, postcolonial feminist studies, citizenship studies and Caribbean feminist praxis. She is curious about alternative ways of being, including how joy can be a practice of living for black and brown immigrant women. 

DaShané Fugate is a first year Culture and Theory PhD student with interests related to blackness, wellness, movement, embodiment, black feminist epistemologies, and performance. In her free time she enjoys yoga and spending time with friends

Dr. angela gay-audre (she/they) is a Black feminist worldbuilder, racial equity practitioner and scholar, cultural educator, poet, and storyteller. From Eastern NC, angela describes herself as a fat Black queer nonbinary femme who has dedicated themself to creating more equitable futures —hoping to yield more opportunities and possibilities to endarkened people. Dr. angela’s background is in clinical mental health counseling and educational leadership, policy, and human development.

Kamille Gentles-Peart is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of critical communication studies at Roger Williams University. Her research centers thick Black Caribbean women and the ways in which they negotiate, disrupt, and resist colonial discourses around their bodies. She is the author of Romance with Voluptuousness: Caribbean Women and Thick Bodies in the United States (University of Nebraska Press, 2016). Her work has also appeared in journals such as Women’s Studies Quarterly, Feminism and Psychology, and Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies (forthcoming). 

Aria Halliday, PhD is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. Halliday is the editor of The Black Girlhood Studies Collection (2019), and author of two books: Buy Black (2022) and the forthcoming Black Girls and How We Fail Them (2022).

Julia S. Jordan-Zachery is professor and chair of the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at Wake Forest University. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on African American women and public policy. She is also the author of the award winning books, Black Women, Cultural Images and Social Policy (2009 Routledge) and Shadow Bodies: Black Women, Ideology, Representation, and Politics (Rutgers University Press, 2017). Jordan-Zachery serves as the President of the Association for Ethnic Studies.

Makeba Lindsay D'Abreu is an international educator, speaker, and minister, a coach, a nonprofit management consultant, and a philomath. She is a second-year Ph.D. student at Virginia Commonwealth University, a Holmes Scholar, a Deans Scholar Awardee, and an SREB-State Doctoral Fellow. Her mission is to–with enthusiasm, efficiency, and laughter–equip, organize, and build the capacity of organizations to fulfill their mission. She still finds time to make interactive greeting cards and PLAY games with all those things filling her mind and spiritual spaces.

Sharisse McGill, LCSW (Risse) is the Operations Director at Harmony Health in Charlotte. As a certified Grief Therapist, she offers therapeutic groups, training and workshops. Risse is trained in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [TFCBT],  and is a Certified Triple P Parenting Provider. She is a psychodrama therapist and the Creator of the Kuumba Youth Theater. She has a strong passion for guiding others through healing process.  

Chanté Morris ("Shawn"-"tay") is a Ph.D. student at Cornell University in the Department of Literatures in English. Her research is invested in reading and writing about Black women audacity. She defines audacity through Black women's persistence to live according to our own rules. Her research focuses primarily on Black women’s literature and music.

Adeola’s name means “crown of honor” in Yoruba. She is a space holder and community based educator, supporting racial justice circles to build capacity through facilitation, training, coaching, and event curation. She centers “systemic wellbeing," collective healing, “transformative play," and Black liberation in her work. Curating play spaces, Black geekiness, meditation, making pottery, sitting by a fire, and deeply loving conversation are some of the things that bring her joy.  

Growing up in Lower South Providence, Chandelle Wilcon has been aware of SCLT for as long as she can remember.  Since graduating from RISD in 2008 with a degree in fine art, she has worked in a number of capacities in higher education and in workforce development. Along the way, she also obtained a master’s degree in Education/Community Education from Goddard College in Vermont, and is pursuing becoming a Master Gardener (25 hours of volunteer service to go!), as well as an herbalist.