Meet Our Team
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Cydney Y. Caradonna is a Bay-Area-Grown Decolonial and Abolitionist poet, organizer, and scholar who has recently completed their PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy. She currently serves as Consulting Scholar for the Black Feminist Eco Lab in the Department of Ethnic, Gender, and Disabilities Studies at the University of Utah but has been with the Lab since its inception. Dra. Caradonna’s poetry, organizing, and scholarship are concerned with conjuring and practicing methods that imbue Decolonial and Abolitionist world-making. For Caradonna, the projects of Decolonization and Abolition are tethered to one another and of particular importance for educational institutions. Dra. Caradonna actively publishes, teaches, and presents these works across disciplines. Outside of her scholarship, Caradonna enjoys dancing, running, and experiencing local art in all its forms.
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Dr. Nana Brantuo is a highly skilled researcher, educator, and advocate dedicated to addressing systemic inequalities and centering marginalized populations. With a background in education policy and leadership, curriculum and instruction, and African studies, she specializes in interdisciplinary research, policy analysis, and advocacy. As a non-residential fellow at the University of San Diego Kroc School VIP Lab, Dr. Brantuo focuses on researching transnational systemic violence against Black migrants seeking refuge. As the founder and principal of Diaspora Praxis, LLC, she provides clients with comprehensive research, policy, and technical products, emphasizing data-driven insights and strategic recommendations. Dr. Brantuo is deeply engaged in service work, holding roles on the board of directors at The Person Center, contributing to FAIR SHARE's Data Advisory Committee, and providing thought leadership at the Africa Data Governance Hub Advisory Council. She is also enrolled in the Center for AI and Digital Policy's AI Policy Certificate program, furthering her expertise in ethical AI governance.
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Chelsea N. Bouldin is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies in the department of Ethnic, Gender, and Disability Studies (formerly the School for Cultural and Social Transformation) at the University of Utah. She earned her Ph.D. in Cultural Foundations of Education from Syracuse University, and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Women’s and Gender Studies. She is working on her first book project which examines the relationships between Black women’s imaginative processes of self-making, cognition, and archival praxis. Broadly, her scholarship demonstrates the value of nuancing conceptualizations of Black self-hood, democratizing Black women’s epistemically rich archived writing, and imagining archived material as models of liberatory praxis. Most recently, her work has been supported in her capacities as a selected NWSA Women of Color Leadership (WoCLP) awardee, Black Feminist Eco Lab Faculty Fellow, and 2024-25 Huntington Library Fellow. Black feminism(s) orient her research, teaching, and mentorship.
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Jocelyn Navarro is a Mexican-American scholar from Southern California. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, while holding a bachelor’s degree in botany with minors in environmental studies and gender & women studies. Navarro studies the effects of anthropogenic climate change on plant communities in water-limited environments, and how these changes alter ecosystem functioning. Her research has taken her to several beautiful places all over the world such as Colorado, Arizona, Peru, Norway and South Africa to collect data. Navarro recognizes humans are not always included in scientific discussions about the environment, and would like to make her work more interdisciplinary to include the effects of anthropogenic climate change on humans. She enjoys spending time outdoors and wants to make these spaces more safe and accessible to people who have been historically excluded from these spaces, such as people of color and people with disabilities. Navarro is honored to be a part of the Black Feminist Eco Lab in the School for Cultural & Social Transformation.
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Crystal S. Rudds received her PhD from the University of Illinois and is assistant professor of African American literature and culture in the Department of English at the University of Utah. She served as the assistant editor to Audrey Petty for the oral history High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing and is currently working on a book project that explores representations of public housing in film, African American literature, photography, and Black men’s qualitative narratives. Dr. Rudds’ other research/teaching interests include Black feminist theories and ecological praxis, Afrofuturism, literary ethnography, and digital expressions of Black Spatial Humanities.
With an MFA from Indiana University, she also publishes creative work that has appeared in Obsidian, NightBallet Press, After Hours Press, Midnight & Indigo and, as part of the collective poem, American Gun, published by Big Shoulders Books.
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Vivian Lee (she/her/hers) is a Ph.D. student in the College of Education, in Education, Culture, and Society. Coming from an undergraduate at the University of Utah in Communication Studies, she values the use of rhetoric and examines critical dialogue and practices. Her current research involves queer studies, questions of belonging for students, and relationality.
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Leah Ramnath completed her doctoral studies at Virginia Tech in the Alliance of Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought with a dissertation entitled, Cynical Futurities: A Critical Methodological Intervention Toward a Cynical Geography. She is currently based in Brooklyn, New York, continuing her critical theoretical work as an independent scholar. Her research primarily focuses on critiques of dominant ideologies as it relates to race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, particularly in the political realm.
Through her research, Leah seeks to challenge universalized narratives, advocating not just for inclusion but for social and cultural transformation. She uses a distinctly Black feminist theoretical lens, grounding her analyses in a sociospatial conceptual framework. Her work aims to elevate and contribute towards the intellectual tradition of Afro- and Indo-Caribbean feminist scholars and creative writers, articulating their nuanced and intersectional experiences as part of an overarching ontological and epistemological project.
Her recent publications include “Cynical (Dis)Positions: Cultivating Cynical Sensibilities” in Black Feminist Theorizing Toward Futurity: A Standpoints Volume, Virginia Tech Publishing, “Planetary Ecological Crisis, Climate Change, and Conflict: Unsettling Understandings and Geographies of Encounter” in the SAGE Handbook on Peace and Conflict Studies (forthcoming April 2025).
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Lydia Bradford (she/her) is an undergraduate student pursuing degrees in Gender Studies and Spanish. Raised in Utah, she is passionate about making our state a place where people of all origins and backgrounds can thrive through community advocacy and research. Her work with community organizations seeks to bridge language, education, and community empowerment in service to social justice. She is currently writing an Honors Thesis that analyzes nativist images and narratives at the heart of the Trump Administration’s anti-immigration rhetoric, and how this connects to our nation’s history of gendered and radicalized immigration policy.