Alumni

Mario Nisbett

Visiting Professor Clark University

Mario received a B.A. in Social Sciences (with an emphasis in History) at the University of the Virgin Islands, M.A. in African Diaspora History at Morgan State University, and M.A. in African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Throughout his academic career, he has worked and volunteered on projects that have impacted the local and wider academic community at a number of institutions and organizations, which include the University of the Virgin Islands, the University of Maryland, Community College of Baltimore County, Lexis Nexis Academic and Library...

Shaun Ossei-Owusu

Post Doctoral Fellow, Columbia Law School

I developed an interest in social science history while conducting his dissertation research, which explored the historical development of legal aid institutions and public defender offices. Los Angeles created the United States’ first public defender office in 1914, which piqued my interest in public administration in LA. While at USC, I expect to turn my dissertation into a book manuscript and continue archival research on my second project, which examines the evolution of Los Angeles’ public health and criminal justice bureaucracies and their relationship to race, class, gender,...

Ianna Hawkins Owen

Assistant Professor, Williams College

Ianna earned her BA in Africana Studies from CUNY Hunter College where she graduated as the valedictorian in 2008. While at Hunter she was a Mellon Mays fellow, a Macaulay Honors scholar, organized with a popular education activist group called All City, and worked for the anti- police and hate violence working group of the Audre Lorde Project. Ianna received her MA in African American Studies from UC Berkeley. Under the direction of Darieck Scott, Ianna is completing her dissertation, Ordinary Failures: Toward a Diasporan Ethics, for the PhD in African Diaspora Studies. Her essay, “...

Mariko Pegs

Doctoral Candidate

Thirty-one years after graduating from high school, Mariko earned her A.A. degree magna cum laude from West Los Angeles College in 2009. She transferred to UCLA in 2011, and in 2013, she graduated cum laude with a B.A. in History and a minor in African American Studies. She earned her M.A. from UC Berkeley in 2015 in the Dept of African American Studies/African Diaspora Studies. Her research interests include 19th century slavery, Black feminism, African American women’s history, genealogy practices, and family myth and memory practices. Her dissertation discusses the commercialization and...

Christopher Petrella

Lecturer, Bates College

B.A., Philosophy and Religious Studies, Bates College
M.A., Religion, Ethics, and Politics, Harvard University
M.A., African Diaspora Studies, U.C. Berkeley
Ph.D., African Diaspora Studies, U.C. Berkeley (in progress)

Christopher writes on race and prisons. He is a member of the teaching faculty at Bates College.

Please see www.christopherfrancispetrella.net for more information.

Nicole Ramsey

Doctoral Candidate

Nicole Ramsey is a doctoral student in the department of African American & African Diaspora Studies. Originally from Los Angeles, California, she holds an MA in African American Studies from UCLA and a BA in American Studies from UC Santa Cruz. Research Interests: Blackness and Identity Formations in Central America and the Caribbean; Migration; Belonging; Diaspora; Transnational Feminism; Cultural Production; Gender and Black Diasporic Women Histories.

Gabriel Regalado

Phd

Gabriel is a scholar-organizer focused on harmonizing liberation theory with community praxis. He is currently the ACLS Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown Univeristy. He earned his Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory at UC Berkeley in 2021. He earned his B.A. in Pan-African Studies at Cal State LA in 2013. Gabriel‘s concentrations of study include Pan-Africanism, the Black Radical Tradition, Black nationalism, Marxist Theory, political theory...

Matt Richardson

Associate Professor, University Texas, Austin

Matt Richardson is Assistant Professor in English and African and African Diaspora Studies. He is affiliated with the Center for African and African American Studies, and the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. He has published articles in The Journal of Women’s History, Black Camera: A Journal Devoted to the Study and Documentation of the Black Cinematic Experience, Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of the NSRC and The Journal of Women’s History, as well as works of fiction in publications like Queer Codex and Does Your Mama Know: African American Coming Out Stories....

Petra Rivera Rideau

Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech

Petra Rivera-Rideau is an assistant professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Sociology at Virginia Tech. Prior to this, she held a postdoctoral fellowship in Latin American and Iberian Studies at the University of Richmond as part of the Consortium for Faculty Diversity in Liberal Arts Colleges program. Dr. Rivera-Rideau’s research interests concern race in Latin America and the Caribbean, diaspora studies, and popular culture. She is currently finishing her first book manuscript, tentatively titled Todo Puerto Rico!: Race and Diaspora in Puerto Rican Reggaeton, that concerns the...

Reginold A. Royston

Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of African Cultural Studies and the Information School

I received my PhD in African Diaspora Studies with a designated emphasis in New Media in spring 2014. I’ve received degrees in anthropology and philosophy from Howard University. My areas of interest include Science & Technology, media, modernity and race, Online education, and IT for Social Change. My dissertation, Trending in Ghana: Homeland, Diaspora and New Media Publics, investigates how diaspora is deployed in discourse on development; in news, social and entertainment media; and in the social imaginary of Ghana. I also research the role of online classrooms in promoting global...