LaWana Firyali Richmond, EdD
Role: Panelist
Affiliation: UC San Diego/BSAM – San Diego
Title: [187]
Session Name: Friday Plenary Session
Bio:
Dr. LaWana Richmond is the San Diego Coordinator for the Black Speculative Arts Movement and a Fellow at the UC San Diego Indigenous Futures Institute.
She is a Mother and Grandmother
I am because we are and because we are therefore I am from the Ubuntu people aligns and resonates with her spirit and how she moves in the world.
For the past seven years, she has led the production of the Afrofuturism Lounge, Afrofuturism Dream Tank, and more recently Afro Co. And Afro Future Con. She has presented, facilitated, participated in, and led discussions on Afrofuturism both virtually and in real life at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, UN Conference on the Status of Women, UN Youth Summit, and the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent as well as UC San Diego, UC Los Angeles, Cal State Fullerton, San Diego State University, and the California Department of Education, San Diego County Office of Education, San Diego Public Library, San Diego City College, local arts and nonprofit organizations, and some corporations.
She is one of two inaugural Chrispeels Fellowship recipients as she earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership from California State University, San Marcos and University of California, San Diego.
Her research interests include leadership development and employee engagement as well as access to and persistence in education. Her passion is Afrofuturism as a framework for critical thinking, destigmatizing intellectualism in the African Diaspora and nationbuilding.
At UC San Diego she serves as Organizational Development and Training Manager for Triton Auxiliary Programs and Services where she creates frameworks, systems, and tools to support engagement, learning, and innovation.
