Research and Scholarship
USF Faculty Research on Black Life
Below is a list of USF Faculty members who have conducted or are conducting research regarding Black Life, the Black community, Africa or the African diaspora.
Contact the Institute on Black Life to be added to this list of researchers.
Dr. Katherine Alfredo
Email: kalfredo@usf.edu
Department: College of Engineering
Area of Research: Drinking water quality and treatment, sustainable potable water provisions, US and
international water quality regulation, community support of drinking water technology
and utilities
Dr. Vonzell Agosto
Email: vagosto@usf.edu
Department: Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies
Area of Research: Her research interests include curriculum leadership, disability studies, and cultural
(heritage, popular, material) studies.
Dr. Fenda Akiwumi
Email: fakiwumi@usf.edu
Department: School of Geosciences
Area of Research: African development and Africa-African Diaspora collaborations for development, more
broadly; and ethnic geographic education.
Dr. Julie Armstrong
Email: jba@usf.edu
Department: Department of English
Area of Research: Julie Buckner Armstrong is author of Mary Turner and the Memory of Lynching and editor
of multiple books on the civil rights movement including, most recently, the Cambridge
Companion to American Civil Rights Literature.
Dr. Raymond O. Arsenault
Email: rarsenau@usf.edu
Department: College of Arts & Science - Florida Studies
Area of Research: A specialist in the political, social, environmental, and civil rights history of
the American South.
Dr. Kathryn Weedman Arthur
Email: kjarthur@usf.edu
Department: Department of Anthropology
Area of Research: Community Archaeology, Heritage and Landscapes, Ethnoarchaeology, Material Culture
Studies, Ontologies, Stone Tool Technology, Africa, Social Construction of Race and
Gender
Dr. Roberta Baer
Email: baer@usf.edu
Department: Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications
Area of Research: Medical Anthropology, nutritional anthropology, food and culture, cultural aspects
of diabetes, cancer, and stress, race and health disparities, minority, immigrant
and refugee health issues, international development; Latin America, US
Email: trbell@usf.edu
Department: Department of Humanities and Cultural Studies
Area of Research: Bell's primary research focuses on sports media often at an intersection with race
and gender.
Email: aberish@usf.edu
Department: Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications
Area of Research: His research interests include topics in jazz and American popular music, theories
of space and place, and ideologies of race.
Email: chennevi@usf.edu
Department: Department of Psychology
Area of Research: Clinical
Dr. Deirdre Cobb-Roberts
Email: cobbrob@usf.edu
Department: College of Education
Area of Research: Her research focuses on gendered racism in the faculty and administrative ranks of
Black women in higher education.
Dr. Kelly Cowart
Email: cowartk@usf.edu
Department: School of Marketing and Innovation
Area of Research: Cowart’s research interests revolve around mobile commerce, social media and the
role of stereotypes in marketing.
Email: koconner@usf.edu
Department: Department of Mental Health Law and Policy
Area of Research: Her research investigates the factors that influence disparities in mental health
service utilization and treatment outcomes for African American elders with depression.
Dr. Earl Conteh-Morgan
Email: conteh@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: American Foreign Policy, International Relations, International Conflict
Dr. Dana Thompson Dorsey
Email: hmatthewdunn@usf.edu
Department: College of Education
Area of Research: Her research and teaching focuses on education law and policy issues,
as well as critical race studies.
Dr. Holly Dunn
Email: hmatthewdunn@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: Post-conflict justice, rule of law, legal pluralism, legal politics, gender justice,
qualitative and critical methods.
Email: kgabbido@usf.edu
Department: Department of Psychology
Area of Research: Her research interests include youth sexual health, health equity
and intersectionality.
Email: gainesj@usf.edu
Department: College of Engineering
Area of Research: Research interests focus on engineering identity development with special populations
of underserved students.
Dr. Manjriker Gunaratne
Email: gunaratn@usf.edu
Department: College of Engineering
Area of Research: Modeling of soil and pavement material behavior, modeling of uncertainty in geotechnical
systems using probability methods, fuzzy sets and neural networks, application of
numerical techniques to pavement design and management, application of digital imaging
and satellite technology to solve geotechnical and pavement engineering problems.
Dr. Antoinette Jackson
Email: atjackson@usf.edu
Department: Department of Anthropology
Area of Research: Sociocultural and historical anthropology; identity and representation; social construction
of race, class, gender, ethnicity; heritage resource management; American, African
American and African Diaspora culture; ethnographic research methods; United States,
Caribbean
Dr. Navita James
Email: njames2@usf.edu
Department: Department of Communication
Area of Research: Media studies, Gender and Culture, Narrative
Dr. Micah Johnson
Email: micahjohnson@usf.edu
Department: Department of Mental Health Law and Policy, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences
Area of Research: Substance misuse and behavioral health among justice-involved adolescents, Health
disparities in behavioral health services, and Race and ethnic studies
The Johnson Lab
Ruby Joseph, MPS
Email: raj@usf.edu
Department: College of Behavioral and Community Sciences
Area of Research: Her primary interests are in research, evaluation, and service implementation of
programs that benefit minority populations and communities.
Dr. Edward Kissi
Email: ekissi@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: History of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, famine and the politics of relief aid,
history of U.S. relations with Africa, human rights in Africa, comparative genocide,
and the impract of the Holocaust on sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Kristin Kosyluk
Email: kkosyluk@usf.edu
Department: Department of Mental Health Law and Policy
Area of Research: Dr. Kosyluk’s research agenda is defined by a focus on mental illness and psychiatric
disability, with a special interest in social justice issues and stigma.
Dr. Lurie Lahey
Email: lahey@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: Research explores how an unlikely alliance of militant African Americans, Puerto
Ricans, and white Christians cooperated in their quest for social justice during the
late-1960s and early-1970s. Dr. Lahey general research area includes, race and racism
in American history, the African Diaspora, 20th century social movements, and religion
sand politics.
Dr. Dillon Mahoney
Email: dmahoney1@usf.edu
Department: Department of Anthropology
Area of Research: Urban informal economies, the tourism industry, and socio-economic change in Kenya.
Recently worked closely with colleagues at USF and community partners to investigate
the impact of COVID-19 pandemic policies on populations of recently resettled refugees
in the Tampa Bay Area.
Email: emauldin@mail.usf.edu
Department: Department of History
Area of Research: U.S. Environmental History, Civil War and Reconstruction, the History of the U.S.
South, African American History, Atlantic World
Email: ottanelli@usf.edu
Department: Department of History
Area of Research: Post-1865 US History, U.S. Radical Movements, Ethnic and Labor History, US Immigration
and Ethnic History; Comparative Migration, and US History in a Global Age.
Dr. Zacharias Pieri
Email: zpieri@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: Conflict in the World, Understanding Extremism, Islam in the Modern World
Social and Religious Movements, Qualitative Methodologies, Globalization, Migration
and Citizenship
Dr. David Ponton
Email: dponton@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: As a social historian, Dr. Ponton research traces the varied consequences of racial
residential segregation and the criminalization of racialized spaces for black Americans
in the twentieth century.
Dr. Steven Roach
Email: sroach@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: Global Ethics, Human Rights, Global Governance, Critical International Theory, the
International Criminal Court, South Sudan, and East African Politics
Dr. Cheryl Rodriguez
Email: crodriguez@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: African-American anthropology, community ethnography, race, gender and housing, women
and gender in Africa and the diaspora, youth and community organizations
Dr. Ruthmae Sears
Email: ruthmaesears@usf.edu
Department: College of Education
Area of Research: Research focuses on curriculum issues, systemic change initiatives in K-20 STEM settings,
the development of reasoning and proof skills, clinical experiences in secondary mathematics,
and the integration of technology in mathematics.
Dr. Tangela Serls
Email: serlst@usf.edu
Department: Department of Women's and Gender Studies
Area of Research: Research interests are contemporary African American women authors, Black feminist
theory, Womanist theory, and friendship theology.
Dr. Kersuze Simeon-Jones
Email: ksimeon@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: Primary research and teaching interests include: Intellectual History and Political
Movements of the African Diaspora, Haiti’s National History; Women History within
the African/Black Diaspora.
Dr. Steven Tauber
Email: stauber@usf.edu
Department: School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
Area of Research: Animal Rights, American Politics, the Politics of Race and Ethnicity,
and Judicial Behavior
Email: matrotz@usf.edu
Department: Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering
Area of Research: Research includes water quality, water source protection and water provision for
sustainable communities through a lens that focuses on the intersection of infrastructure
for education and engineered systems.
Dr. Eugenia Vomvoridi-Ivanovic
Email: ksimeon@usf.edu
Department: College of Education
Area of Research: Her research investigates teacher education that is responsive to the funds of knowledge
of culturally diverse mathematics teachers and seeks to prepare culturally responsive
mathematics teachers who promote equity and social justice in mathematics education.
Dr. Brenda Walker
Email: brendawalker@usf.edu
Department: College of Education
Area of Research: Her scholarship centers on the disciplinary practices to which African American learners
are disproportionately subjected, issues around ethics, power, and privilege, and
strategies for African American students with academic gifts and talents.
Dr. E. Christian Wells
Email: ecwells@usf.edu
Department: Department of Anthropology
Area of Research: Environmental Justice, Anthropological Approaches to Human-Environmental Health,
Quantitative Methods, Advanced Quantitative Methods
Email: rewilson@usf.edu
Department: College of Public Health
Area of Research: Maternal and Child Health; Community Engaged Research; Quality Improvement and Program
Evaluation