Who We Are

Nneka D. Dennie, President and Co-Founder, president@blackwomensstudies.com

Dr. Nneka D. Dennie is Assistant Professor of History at Washington and Lee University and a Mellon Just Transformations Fellowship in the Center for Black Digital Research at Pennsylvania State University. She earned her PhD in African American Studies and graduate certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Dennie specializes in Black feminism and Black intellectual history, with a particular emphasis on nineteenth-century Black women thinkers. Her first book project, Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Black Radical Feminist, is a primary source collection that will be published with Oxford University Press in 2023. She is currently developing her monograph, (Re)defining Radicalism: The Rise of Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability in the Nineteenth Century, which is a study of Black women’s radical thought.

Danielle Procope Bell, Vice President, awards@blackwomensstudies.com

Dr. Danielle Procope Bell is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is affiliate faculty in English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGS). In 2021, Dr. Procope Bell earned her Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University. At UT Knoxville, she teaches a wide variety of courses on Black feminist theory, African American literature, and reproductive justice. Dr. Procope Bell is currently working on a book manuscript about the link between Black femininity rhetoric and embodiment and early Black feminism. Dr. Procope Bell belongs to several academic associations including The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists (C19), the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS), and the Modern Language Association (MLA). She is passionate about Black maternal health and is a founding member of the Knoxville Birth Equity Alliance. She is also a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Jacinta R. Saffold, Treasurer and Co-Founder, treasurer@blackwomensstudies.com

Dr. Jacinta R. Saffold is Assistant Professor of English and Endowed Chair of Africana Studies at the University of New Orleans. She received her Ph.D. from the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with certificates in African Diaspora Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Saffold’s research interests coalesce around 20th and 21st century African American literature, Hip Hop Studies, and the Digital Humanities. She is currently working her first manuscript, Books & Beats: The Cultural Kinship of Street Lit and Hip Hop and related digital archiving projects. She also has extensive experience as a scholar-administrator with emphases on enrollment management, inclusive diversity, and student success. Ultimately, Dr. Saffold is committed to widening access for minority students and shifting the culture in higher education to be more inclusive through a prism of African American literature and culture.

Shauna Rigaud, Secretary, secretary@blackwomensstudies.com

Shauna is currently a PhD candidate at George Mason University in Cultural Studies. She holds a BA in Afro-American Studies from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MA in Gender/Cultural Studies and MS in Communications Management from Simmons University. Her current research interests seek to draw doted lines between Black American and Caribbean American experiences, through the work of women, cultural practices, and ideas of solidarity and nation building.

Brittney Miles, Membership Chair, membership@blackwomensstudies.com

Brittney Miles is a PhD Student in Sociology at the University of Cincinnati (UC), where she is an Albert C. Yates fellow. She is also completing a graduate certificate in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at UC. Her scholarship centers Black girlhood, specifically in the areas of sexuality, disability, and embodiment. Her upcoming project explores notions of beauty and how Black women and girls use fashion, hairstyling, and makeup as embodied resistance. She completed a Masters of Education in Social and Cultural Foundations in Education at DePaul University. This degree complemented her prior research on Black girls’ meaning making about school discipline in Cincinnati. She completed her Bachelors of Arts in Sociology at Kenyon College. You can follow her on Twitter at @BlkSchlr_BMiles.

**Olivia Adams, Blog Editor**
Dr. Olivia Adams is an interdisciplinary social scientist and incoming Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of Florida. She is a recent doctoral graduate of Indiana University Bloomington's Department of Gender Studies, where her dissertation work contributed historical, critical, and quantitative analyses of chronic vulovaginal pain experiences, particularly among Black and Brown women. Dr. Adams' collaborative research program continues to focus on themes of healthcare seeking behaviors, medical mistrust, healthcare disparities, and patient experiences in sexual and reproductive healthcare contexts. She also plans to expand her work to investigate the role of heteronormativity in chronic vulvovaginal pain patient experiences.

Stephanie Andrea Allen, Conference Chair, conference@blackwomensstudies.com

Stephanie Andrea Allen, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary humanities scholar, creative writer, small press publisher, and Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Indiana University. Her research centers Black lesbian cultural histories and Black feminisms through various expressions, including literature, film, and other print and visual media. Her current book project “We Must Document Ourselves Now:” Black Lesbian Cultural Legacies and the Politics of Self-Representation, examines how Black lesbian literature and film reflects the material realities of Black lesbian lived experiences, as well as how it responds to and resists the heteropatriarchal systems that contribute to the invisibility of Black lesbians in popular and literary culture.

Dr. Allen is also Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at BLF Press, and co-editor of Serendipity Literary Magazine. Her creative work can be found in various online and print publications, including The Black Femme Collective, Mom Egg Review, Star*Line, Inkwell Black, Big Echo: Critical Science Fiction Magazine, Sinister Wisdom, and in her two short story collections, A Failure to Communicate and How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions.