Convening Co-Chair, Founder and CEO, Research in Action

Dr. Brittany Lewis, Founder and CEO, developed our Equity in Action model—an approach rooted in reciprocal relationships and actionable outcomes. She has led research projects requiring complex data integration and collaboration with criminal justice stakeholders for over fifteen years. She has served as Principal Investigator on large-scale projects involving racial equity assessments, data audits, and program evaluation. She led RIA's work on the Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force and currently oversees the Justice in Institutions Initiative. Her expertise in criminal justice research, racial justice, and translating data into actionable recommendations directly supports this program's goals of transparency and accountability.

Assistant Professor, Chicago State University

Dr. Meghan L. Green (she/her) is a Black queer neurodivergent cisgender woman and third generation early childhood educator originally from southwest Louisiana. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Chicago State University. Her disability and queer identity have shaped how she thinks about the fluidity of community within and outside of academic spaces. Dr. Green’s scholarship explores culturally sustaining and justice-centered early childhood education, intergenerational legacies of Black knowledge-making, and arts-based healing-oriented inquiry.

Coordinator, Community Engagement, St. Catherine University

Amira McLendon is a visual artist and emerging curator from Apple Valley, Minnesota, currently based in Minneapolis. She holds a BA in Art from the University of Minnesota. Their artistic practice focuses on digital illustration and explores diverse storytelling from a curatorial lens. McLendon sees art and curation as mediums for calling upon social change and justice, using said work to unearth the untold stories and amplify the voices of people that have often been overlooked by traditional institutions. Her work advocates for LGBTQ+ individuals, Black and Indigenous communities, and People of Color. They are Collections Manager for Memorialize The Movement, where she continues to blend her artistic visions with her commitment to preserving, honoring, and uplifting forgotten and undervalued communities and narratives. Currently, McLendon is the Coordinator in the Center for Community Work and Learning and Collaborative Research at St. Catherine University.

Associate Director of Partnership & Engagement for Wilder Research 

I am a critical educator, researcher, and scholar of education. My work is dedicated to Black humanity and the uprooting of antiblackness in all of its forms and manifestations. In my role at Wilder Research, I lead a coordinated strategy for community partnership and engagement. My work is focused on building capacity for partnership, deepening organizational relationships, and centering community voice, knowledge, and experience in evaluation and research. My primary research and partnership interests are centered around race equity in education policy and practice, across the lifespan. I am also interested in projects that assess social service networks, systemic inequality, and processes of social change.

Director, Women's Center at the University of Minnesota

A native of Raymond, Mississippi, Dr. ReAnna S. Roby is a research-practitioner and Director of the Women's Center at the University of Minnesota—the first university-based women's center in the US. For nearly two decades, Roby has worked at the intersections of race, gender, and science, which can be reflected in her experiences at the Office of Equity and Diversity at Washington State University, her administrative and postdoctoral teaching and research experiences at Michigan State University, the Fisk-Vanderbilt Center of Excellence, and the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center at Vanderbilt University. A first-generation graduate & 2024 AERA Division E award recipient, Roby holds a bachelor’s in chemistry from Alcorn State University, a master’s from Washington State University, and Ph.D. from the University of Texas-San-Antonio. Roby currently serves as Vice-President of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated ® Alpha Delta Sigma Omega Graduate chapter situated in Eden Prairie, MN. 

Convening Co-Chair

Dr. Catherine R. Squires, PhD, is a writer, editor, and research consultant in St. Paul, Minnesota. After retiring from her position as the Associate Dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in 2022, she began working as an independent consultant and editor. For nearly two decades, she has engaged in multiple community partnerships in the Twin Cities to uplift and share local Black histories, support BIPOC writers, curate panels, host conferences and facilitate intergenerational story sharing. Professor Squires is the author of multiple books on media, race, gender, and politics and has written and co-authored over 40 articles, book chapters, and op-eds on a variety of topics, from media coverage of political controversies to Black maternal health.