KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, PhD
Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Ph.D., is a Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the 2024 Dorothy Height Distinguished Alumni Awardee from New York University. Her research, featured in leading academic journals, explores racial literacy and educational equity. She is co-editor of five books, including All About Black Girl in Education: bell hooks and Pedagogies of Love (2024), and co-author of the award-winning Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces (2021), where she introduces her concept of Archaeology of Self™ and her Racial Literacy Development (RLD) framework.
Named one of EdWeek's Top 1% EduScholar Influencers for four consecutive years, Yolanda is the founder of the Racial Literacy Project @TC and the Racial Literacy Roundtable Series, where for over 15 years, scholars, teachers, and students have engaged in critical conversations about race and diversity. She has appeared in Spike Lee’s 2 Fists Up: We Gon’ Be Alright (2016) and Defining Us, Children at the Crossroads of Change, documentaries highlighting racial justice and education.
Her poetry collections, Love from the Vortex & Other Poems (2020) and The Peace Chronicles (2021), reflect her commitment to truth, love, and healing. In 2022, she delivered her TEDx Talk, Truth, Love & Racial Literacy, at the University of Pennsylvania. Connect with Yolanda on Blue Sky @sealeyruiz.bsky.social and Instagram @yolie_sealeyruiz.
Dr. Gholnescar (Gholdy) Muhammad
Dr. Gholnescar (Gholdy) Muhammad is an Associate Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture. She has previously served as a classroom teacher, literacy specialist, school district administrator, curriculum director, and school board president. She studies Black historical excellence in education, intending to reframe curriculum and instruction today. She also co-authored Black girls’ literacies: An Edited Volume. Her Culturally and Historically Responsive Education Model has been adopted across thousands of U.S. schools and districts across Canada. In 2022, she was named among the top 1% Edu-Scholar Public Influencers due to her impact on policy and practice. She has also received numerous awards from national organizations and universities. She was named the American Educational Research Association Division K Early Career Award and the 2021 NCTE Outstanding Elementary Educator in the English Language Arts. She has led a federal grant with the United States Department of Education to study culturally and historically responsive literacy in STEM classrooms. Her book, Unearthing Joy, is the sequel to Cultivating Genius and provides a practical guide for putting culturally and historically responsive education into curricular practice.
Dr. Muhammad is the author of Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy and Unearthing Joy: (A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching & Learning).