About Jessica

Jessica is an Anna Julia Cooper Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. She will be an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in fall of 2024. Her work in education draws on the discipline of Black Studies to explore how Black teachers create fugitive spaces to navigate and combat antiblackness at their respective school sites.

Jessica’s research has been supported by the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching grant, the Stanford Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) Fellowship, and the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship. In addition to the NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, her dissertation research has been supported by the Stanford GSE Dissertation Support Grant and the Stanford Diversity Dissertation Research Opportunity. She holds a B.S. in Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a M.S. in Literature from Northwestern University, and a PhD in Race, Inequality, and Language in Education (RILE) and Curriculum and Teacher Education (CTE) at Stanford University. Before beginning her doctoral studies at Stanford, Jessica taught English and Reading for 11 years in the Chicagoland area.

Outside of research, Jessica loves going on long walks while listening to audiobooks, planning mini adventures, and baking tasty treats.

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