Academic CV
Professional Experience:
Fugitive Intellectual - 2026
Minneapolis, MN
2024 - 2026 Visiting Mellon Faculty fellow in History and Africana Studies
Rhodes College – Memphis Tennessee
South Memphis Stories Oral History Project with the South City Museum and Cultural Center
2023 - 2024 UNCF Mellon Fellow
Harvard University – Cambridge Massachusetts
Systemic Police Terrorism: A Conceptual Framework
2018 - 2024 Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American & Diaspora Studies
Xavier University of Louisiana – New Orleans Louisiana
Head of concentration in Crime and Social Justice
2014 - 2018 Sociology Professor (Tenured)
Merritt College – Oakland California
Creator of the Sociology AA-T Program
Research Publications:
forthcoming (2028). 2020 Hindsight: The End of #BlackLivesMatter and the emergence of the Black Protest Industrial Complex. Vanderbilt University Press
2026. “Systemic Police Terrorism: Targeted Black Communities and the terrorism of Everyday Policing”. The Black Scholar. Special Issue: No Justice, No Peace: Decoding the Bias in America’s Criminal Justice System, to be published in 2026.
2024. “T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E.- Tupac Shakur as a Symbol of Black Rebellion for the “Pac Babies” of #BlackLivesMatter”. Howard Journal of Communications, Special Issue: Tupac Shakur 25 Years Later: Explorations of a Hip Hop Icon and Identity
2023 ‘Sincerely, Grandma’s Hands: Reintroducing the Trayvon Martin Generation to the Radical Youth of the Civil Rights Movement. In Rights and Lives: The Civil Rights Movement, #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Freedom Struggle. Ed. Francoise Hamlin, Shirletta J Kinchen and Charles McKinney. Nashville: TN, Vanderbilt University Press
2023. “Maroonage as Proto Pan-Africanism: A Study Abroad Module” A Study Abroad Manual For Promoting Pan-African Consciousness and Action. Ed. Beverly Booker Ammah, Fatou Sow, Rose Jones Walls, Albie Walls. Accra: Ghana, University of Ghana Press
2022 “Reevaluating Black Student Study Abroad Responses and Investing in Faculty Led Programs Throughout the Diaspora to Increase HBCU Student Participation” in Reimagining Internationalization and International Initiatives at Historically Black Colleges and Universities Ed. Krishna Bista and Anthony L Pinder. New York: NY, Springer International Publishing
2020. “Shuri of Wakanda: The People’s Princess” in Recasting Disney Princesses in an era of New Media and Social Movements. Ed. Shearon Roberts. New York: NY, Lexington Books (Pp. 227-244).
2018. Solidarity, Double Consciousness and Collective Emotion Work: Understanding Negative Black Health Outcomes resulting from Systemic Police Terror. in Inequality Crime and Health Among African American Males. Ed Darnell F. Hawkins and Marino A. Bruce. WA: UK,Emerald Publishing (Pp .185-205)
2017. “#BlacknessBeLike: How the White Racial Framing of Blackness on Social Media Exposes the Narrative of "Post-Racial America" as a Tool of Systemic Racism” in Systemic Racism: Making Liberty, Justice and Democracy Real. Ed. Kimberley Ducey and Ruth Thompson-Miller. New York: NY, Palgrave. (Pp. 205-236).
Grants and Awards:
2025 Course Enhancement Grant: Project Pericles Education and Citizenship. Community Engagement in South Memphis with HIST 205 “Photographies, Stories and Memory in Memphis”.
2023 Black Book Interactive Project (BBIP): Afro PWW (Publishing Without Walls) Professional Development and training for Black Studies Open Source Publication: University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
2022 Colombia Challenge Your Knowledge (CCYK) Ambassador for Blended program for Engagement and Exchange between Colombian HEIs and HBCUs. Universidad Autonoma de Occidente & Universidad Tecnologica Bolivar
2021 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award. Institute for Citizens and Scholars - Le Triangle Noir Documentary film connecting Senegal, Haiti and New Orleans as Black sites of the French Colonial Empire.
2021 William T. Grant AQC Scholars Cohort. Institute in Quantitative, Computational and Mixed-Methodologies. (ICQCM) - Systemic Police Terrorism
2020 Enact Faculty Fellow. Brandeis University Educational Network For Active Civic Transformation.
2020 Faculty Travel Award. Tulane Stone Center for Latin American Studies: Global Studies Symposium on National Research Center, Community College and Minority-Serving Institution collaboration to Internationalize Education
2020 Faculty Resource Network Winter Faculty Enrichment Program of Identities in motion: The Lived Experience and Theoretical Journeys of Caribbean Diasporas. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Universidad del Sagrado Corazon. New York University
2019 Multi Cultural Trauma Treatment Program Kigali, Rwanda. University of. Rwanda with Global Engagement Institute
2019. Faculty Development Seminar in Senegal. CAORC Faculty Development Seminar Facilitator: Diversity, Religion and Migration in West Africa
Education:
Ph.D., Sociology
Texas A&M University, August 2014.
Dissertation: “Hooperchicks: Black Women, College Basketball and Identity Negotiation:
Committee: Reuben A.B. May (Chair), Jane Sell, Sarah Gatson, Akilah Carter-Francique
Graduate Certificate in Africana Studies (Master’s equivalent)
Texas A&M University, August 2014
Advisors: Kimberly N. Brown, Aisha Durham, Albert Broussard