Damaris C Dunn

Damaris C. Dunn, PhD, is a qualitative researcher, education scholar,2 writer, and former New York City public school teacher. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Theory and Practice from the University of Georgia, an MA from Teachers College Columbia University in History and Education, and a BA from the State University of New York at Oswego in History. Damaris served as the Community School Director at Global Kids, Inc., collaborating with the local community, families, and youth in the South Bronx. She was also an instructor of spoken word and archival research at the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture's Junior Scholars Program (JSP) located in Harlem. Damaris, with over a decade of experience as an educator and youth developer, recognizes the need for educating Black youth about Afro-diasporic history and culture. Additionally, Damaris acknowledges the vital role that Black educators play in the lives of their students. Guided by her work as a practitioner, Damaris’s research and scholarship focus on the impact of anti-Blackness on education at the national, state, and local level; Black women educators’ labor(ing); and geographies of Radical Black Joy. Damaris has collaborated with esteemed professors and colleagues to publish articles in various academic journals on these topics, including Urban Education, The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, The Social Studies, and Research in the Teaching of English. She has also written several book chapters. In 2023, Damaris, together with her colleagues and mentor, received the American Educational Research (AESA) Taylor & Francis Educational Studies Best Paper Award for their work titled "A Radical Doctrine: Abolitionist Education in Hard Times." Damaris, a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright scholarship, took part in the Teachers Becoming Learners of Cultural & Linguistic Diversity initiative in Ghana during the summer of 2022.