Amanda Fields is an Assistant Professor of English and Writing Center Director at Central Connecticut State University as well as the Editor-in-Chief of Literary Mama. She co-edited My Caesarean: Twenty-One Mothers on the C-Section Experience and After (The Experiment Press), a Silver winner of the 2019 Foreword INDIES, and Toward, Around, and Away From Tahrir: Tracking Emerging Expressions of Egyptian Identity (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014). Her writing and research have been published in Brevity, Indiana Review, So to Speak, Nashville Review, Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, The Writing Center Journal, The Peer Review, Children's Literature Quarterly, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Journal of Adolescent Research, and others.

-- Central Connecticut State University

Jennifer M. Hoenig has always had a strong interest in mental health promotion, and she was able to focus her graduate thesis and subsequent doctoral work in this field. While working on her PhD at the University of Arizona she was lucky enough to be accepted to the Health Research Training Program (HRTP) at the New York City Department of Healthand Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH). She turned her internship in to a full-time position as a Senior Analyst in the Bureau of Mental Health where she worked for three years leading the planning, development, and implementation of survey research activities focused on mental health among adult New Yorkers. In June of this year she moved to SAMHSA where she works on the implementation and analysis of the National Survey of Drug use and Health (NSDUH).

-- Emory University

Stephen T. Russel joined the faculty in Human Development and Family Sciences and the Population Research Center in the summer of 2015.  He studies adolescent development, with an emphasis on adolescent sexuality, LGBT youth, and parent-adolescent relationships.  Much of his research is guided by a commitment to create social change to support healthy adolescent development. He is most proud of his research that has been used to shape local and state policies and laws for school safety, and his most rewarding work is with trainees: he works with an amazing group of postdoctoral scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, and he finds supporting their development and learning from them to be the most satisfying part of his job.

He has been involved in community and professional organizations throughout his career, including as Human Relations Commissioner in several cities (Durham, NC; Davis, CA; Tucson, AZ), and currently as chair of the Board of Directors of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).  He has been an elected board member of the National Council on Family Relations (2005-2008) and Past-President of the Society for Research on Adolescence.

-- The SOGI: Health and Rights Laboratory

Dr. Shannon D. Snapp (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor in Psychology at California State University, Monterey Bay. Her work focuses on interpersonal relationships and educational policies and practices that support underrepresented youth’s health and well-being, with a focus on the experiences of LGBTQ youth, youth of color, and youth whose identities and experiences intersect.

She strives to do asset-based, justice-driven, critically-conscious research that has the potential to create social change and reduce inequality. 

Dr. Snapp currently teaches a course she developed called How to Love: The Art and Science of Love and Intimacy.

-- CSU Monterey Bay

Donna Y. Ford, PhD, returned to The Ohio State University in August 2019 as a distinguished professor in the College of Education and Human Ecology. She is also a faculty affiliate with the Kirwan Institute. Professor Ford is in the Department of Educational Studies, the special education program.

She was at Vanderbilt University for 15 years and held two endowed chairs. Dr. Ford was a professor of Special Education at The Ohio State University, an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Virginia, and an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky. 

Professor Ford conducts research primarily in gifted education and culturally responsive/multicultural/urban education. Specifically, her work focuses on:

• the achievement gap;

• recruiting and retaining culturally different students in gifted education;

• multicultural curriculum and instruction;

• culturally competent teacher training and development;

• African-American identity; and

• African-American family involvement.

She consults with school districts, and educational and legal organizations on such topics as gifted education under-representation and Advanced Placement, multicultural/urban education and counseling, and closing the achievement gap.

-- Kirwan Institute

Dr. Brian L. Wright is an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Instruction and Curriculum Leadership in the College of Education and Coordinator of the Middle/High School Cohort of the African American Male Academy at the University of Memphis. His research and publications examine high-achieving African American boys in urban schools pre-k-12, racial-ethnic identity development of boys and young men of color, African American males as early childhood teachers, and teacher identity development. His focus on the academic achievement of Black boys, in particular, has resulted in opportunities to conduct professional development workshops for teachers locally and nationally. He also presented his research at local, national, and international conferences. The Superintendent appointed Dr. Wright in 2014 to the Shelby County Schools Division of Early Childhood Head Start Policy Council as its resident early childhood education expert for a 5-year term. Dr. Wright was the first African-American male to earn his doctoral degree in 2007 in Applied Child Development from the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University (see http://ase.tufts.edu/epcshd/documents/newsletterSpring2009.pdf.) He completed a 2-year residential Post-doctoral Research Fellowship in Education at TERC in 2011. Dr. Wright is listed via “RISE for Boys and Men of Color Expert Directory,” a searchable directory of more than 100 researchers and evaluators who rigorously and routinely study boys and men of color and evaluate programs to serve them (http://www.risebmoc.org/directory).

-- University of Memphis