Shemariah J. Arki identifies as an educator, an activist, and an organizer. Currently serving as a professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies and as the interim director of the Center for Pan-African Culture, both at Kent State University, she is an intersectional feminist scholar with expert knowledge and skills to develop, implement, facilitate, and evaluate curricula that promote institutional equity, communication, and access for traditionally marginalized students and families. Dr. Arki received a graduate certificate from the Penn Equity Institute for Doctoral Students from the Center for The Study of Race & Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She has also been a certified federal equal employment opportunity investigator since 2017.
Serving as the founder and program director of the Ellipsis Institute for Womxn of Color in the Academy and as an auto/ethnographic researcher and creative nonfiction writer, her work centers cultural epistemologies and the construction of a #BlackCommaFeminist pedagogy.
She has authored several academic and creative publications that center the lived experiences of womxn of color in education. As a public intellectual, she consistently ensures that education should be free and compulsory to all through her participation, organizing, and mobilizing of diverse constituents.
A proud Clevelander and mom of Solomon Tafari and Malcom Saadiq, Shemariah enjoys traveling, yoga, and making memories with family and friends.
