I have been blessed to be the beneficiary of tremendous mentorship, first and foremost through my dissertation advisor Dr. Jane Rhodes. Jane’s and my special issue for Souls, African American Representation and the Politics of Respectability, is still one of the most meaningful - and fun - projects I’ve ever worked on. Since graduate school I have had scores of mentors, many of whom have been my peers. Mentorship is fundamental to who I am. Here is a snapshot of some of the incredible graduate students I have advised - and whom I am now proud to call colleagues - as well as those who grow our mentorship circles. I was fortunate to win the Landolt Distinguished Mentor Award in 2022, and hope to continue my mission of cultivating brilliant minds in the field of communication and beyond.

Graduated:

Dr. Manoucheka Celeste, UW Communication Ph.D. 2011, Associate Prof. of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago. First Book: Race Gender and Citizenship in the African Diaspora: Travelling Blackness (Winner of the National Communication Association’s 2017 Outstanding Book Award from the African American Communication & Culture Division and Black Caucus). Dr. Celeste and I are working on an edited collection on WOC mentoring, a piece of which you can see in this special forum for Communication, Culture, and Critique.

Dr. Madhavi Murty, UW Communication Ph.D. 2011, Associate Prof. of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. First book: Stories that Bind: Political Economy and Culture in New India.

Dr. Anjali Vats, UW Communication Ph.D. 2013, Associate Prof. of Law at University of Pittsburgh. First book: The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans.

Dr. Jennifer McClearen, UW Communication Ph.D. 2017, Asst. Prof. of Sports, Media, and Culture in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. First book: Fighting Visibility: Sports Media and Female Athletes in the UFC  

Dr. Victoria Thomas, UW Communication Ph.D. 2020, Assistant Professor of Media, Communication, and Public Engagement in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University

Dr. Anjuli Brekke, UW Communication Ph.D. 2020, assistant professor of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. We have a forthcoming piece, (with CCDE assistant director Dr. Naheed Aaftaab), entitled I address race because race addresses me.

Dr. Marcus Johnson, UW Communication Ph.D. 2022, Teaching Associate in the Foster School of Business, UW. Dissertation: “The New Black Renaissance: Race, Identity and Consciousness in American Popular Culture.” Marcus and I have a co-authored a piece called, “Black Cultural Studies is Intersectionality”

Current Ph.D. students:

Meshell Sturgis, Ph.C. Dissertation: “The Politics of Self-Representation: How Queer Black Mixed-Race Women Use Black Girl Magic in Alternative Media.” Meshell and I have co-authored two pieces together, one called “Visualizing Mixed Race and Genetics” and the other “You’re the Whitest Black person I know.”

jas l. moultrie. jas and I have co-authored a piece called “Activism or Performative Activism”

Lando Tosaya. Research Keywords: afrofuturism, science fiction, media, melanin, comics, graphic novel, and fiction. Lando and I have a co-authored piece called “Digital Blackface, Culture Vultures, and How to Read Racism Like Critical Black Audiences”

Laura Irwin. Laura and I have co-authored a piece called “Watching Woke”