Assata Zerai, Ph.D.
Professor, Sociology and CriminologyVice President for Equity and Inclusion
Biography
Assata Zerai, PhD serves as Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico.
She is Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her professional home from 2002-2019, and former Visiting Professor in the School of Human and Community Development at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa (2020-23).
A decolonial feminist scholar, Zerai’s research employs Black feminist research methodologies to analyze achieving inclusion in complex organizations, just access to information and communications technologies, novel contributions of Black women’s scholarship transnationally, and structural impediments to maternal and child health.
She has published five books and numerous articles spanning these topics. Her latest is African Women, ICT and Neoliberal Politics: The Challenge of Gendered Digital Divides to People-Centered Governance (Routledge 2019).
A 2023 Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad scholar, Zerai administered the Gender and Intersectional Microaggressions (GIMA) Survey at Wits, led Confronting GIMAs Upstander workshops, and wrote her sixth book, Decolonizing the Westernized University: Black Feminist Interventions (Rowman and Littlefield, expected 2024).Why Africana Studies
Professor Assata Zerai is honored to serve as affiliate faculty with Africana Studies at the University of New Mexico (2023-present).
As a Black feminist and scholar of decoloniality, her research has addressed topics and methodologies related to Africana Studies, and her teaching and engagement efforts have centered Black students throughout her 30+ year career as a professional sociologist.
Further, she has led, served in and/or affiliated with Africana studies and collaborated with colleagues in both African and African American Studies at Syracuse University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her previous institutions, and now is pleased to officially join the Africana Studies community at the University of New Mexico.
