Faculty & Staff Directory

Fields: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture, Early Twentieth-Century American Literature and Culture, African-American Literature, Cultural Studies, Children's Literature, Gender and Literature, Critical...

Walidah Imarisha Director of the Center for Black Studies and Associate Professor in the Black Studies Department at Portland State University. Imarisha is an educator and a writer. She is the co-editor of two anthologies,...

A Nigerian-born historian and scholar-teacher, Dr. Bright Alozie is assistant professor in the Black Studies Department. He is also affiliate faculty in the Departments of History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies...

Lisa K. Bates, PhD is Professor in Black Studies at Portland State University. She is affiliated with the Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning and is the Portland Professor in Innovative Housing Policy. Her scholarship...

Pedro is an interdisciplinary archaeologist and works on archaeological and anthropological studies of the Caribbean region, with a focus on the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Pedro's research uncovers the politics of...

Kesha Fikes (she/her) is an independent scholar, a psycho-political educator/group facilitator, and a somatic therapist. Her work is shaped by 25 years of engaged theorization on themes spanning phenomenology, neoliberalism,...

A “born here” Oregonian, Dr. LM Alaiyo “Dr. A” Foster, EdD, NCC, QMHP, CCHW (she/they) fell in love with philanthropy when she was a child. Inspired by her parents’ insistence on volunteerism at an early age,...

CHRISTOPHER IAN FOSTER is the author of Conscripts of Migration: Neoliberal Globalization, Nationalism, and the Literature of New African Diasporas (2019). He served as an Assistant Professor of English and Africana...

Dr. Ethan Johnson is professor of the Black Studies Department in the School of Gender, Race and Nations at Portland State University. His research is interdisciplinary and international. He examines broadly the educational...

Jasmin Johnson holds an eternal partnership with freedom in study and imagination in praxis. Her study is rooted in black fugitivity, gender and sexuality, and performance theory. Her pedagogical approach is inextricable...

Dr. Darrell Millner was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1946 and raised in the Los Angeles area of Southern California. He graduated from California State Polytechnic University with a degree in English in 1969, then taught...

Courtney Terry joins Portland State as an assistant professor in Black Studies. Born and reared in South Central Los Angeles, she graduated from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California with a bachelor's degree...

As current and future Africa prospects advocates, we share a commitment to educating people about Africa through understanding how various social, economic, political, historical, and numerous other complex factors...