Scholar-in-Residence

Cultural Worker and Community Historian

Will North is a cultural worker and community historian based in Houston, Texas. Through his writings and visual art, he explores intergenerational dialogues in shared spaces. He is particularly interested in the intellectual traditions represented by art of the African diaspora. Will develops curriculum and workshops as the Co-Executive Director of the Mufasa’s Pride Rites of Passage program for young men. He has worked with children of all ages as a volunteer art history instructor in area schools.

Interdisciplinary Artist, Teacher, Researcher, Doula, Performer, and Organizer

Jasmine Hearn is committed to performance as an expansive practice that includes a spectrum of dance and somatic traditions and methodologies, sound composition, garment design, and the archiving of matrilineal memories. They are currently on faculty at Bennington College and at the Eugene Lang College of the Liberal Arts at The New School. Jasmine has collaborated with Dream the Combine, Bill T. Jones, Saul Williams, Solange Knowles, Alisha B.

Professor-Scholar | Conceptual DiasporArtist | Afrocentric Entrepreneur

Dr. Lindsay Gary (PhD, MFA, MA, MPA) is a professor-scholar, conceptual diasporArtist, Afrocentric entrepreneur, and cultural curator whose mission is to educate, connect, and empower the African Diaspora. She graduated from the University of Houston with a BA in History and minors in Dance and Business Administration, and later obtained her Graduate Certificate in African American Studies.

Creative Researcher, Community Artists' Collective

Viktor le. Givens is a found object installation performance artist whose practice centers around the gathering and arrangement of ancestral objects to activate spaces for site specific public rituals. By connecting the material culture of his ancestors with pre and post modern spiritual theologies, le. Givens hopes to extend and reimagine the folk customs of his family. His material archive is comprised of the forgotten and discarded household items found during excavations of East Texas, Louisiana, Havana Cuba and Mexico City.

Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Florida

Dr. Wright's research interest includes the study of social movements and urban Black geographies. He has published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, City & Society, and The Black Scholar. In 2021, he co-curated Project Row Houses "Round 52: Gulf Coast Anthropecene," a collection of art interrogating the impact of climate change throughout the Gulf Coast South.

PhD Candidate, Department of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Camesha Scruggs is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A native Texan, she received a BA and MA in history from Texas Southern University. Her research fields are 20th century US, African American, Public History and Gender and Empire.

Camesha Scruggs gave two lectures as a Scholar-in-Residence 2019.

"Toiling in Texas: African American Female Domestic Servants"

"Learning to Labor: Domestic Service Education in Texas"

PhD Candidate, Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy, Rutgers University

Gina Bienski earned a Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Houston and is a licensed architect in Texas.  Her research focuses on residential segregation patterns, community redevelopment, and neighborhood change.

Gina Bienski gave two lectures as a Scholar-in-Residence 2017.

"Phases of Redevelopment in Freedman’s Town"

"Documenting Change in the Built Environment of Freedman's Town"

Educator, Scholar, Writer, Advocate

Maco L. Faniel researches and writes about African American life in the late twentieth century. He is particularly focused on writing histories of how those considered invisible, deviant, worthless, or marginal made meaning of American life. More, specifically he will now be investigating the political economy and lived experience of the War on Drugs in Houston, TX.

Maco L. Faniel gave two lectures as a Scholar-in-Residence 2017.

"Houston Crackdown: Federal Mandate, Local Policy"

Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History, Texas Southern University

Received his Ph.D. in 2008 in History from the University of Houston.  His area of expertise is on the history of Chicano / Latino education in the United States and is currently working on a manuscript entitled Race Schools: Latino, Asian, and Black Educational Autonomy and Activism in Texas, 1920-1980 that offers a comparative analysis of Latino, Asian, and African American-owned schools in Texas since the end of World War I through the post-civil rights era.

Dr Esparza gave two lectures as a Scholar-in-Residence 2016.

Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, Rice University

David Ponton, III earned his BA in Religion from Princeton University, where he also received certification in African American Studies and secondary social studies education.  His current research focuses on residential segregation, Cold War-era transformations of race and racism, and the criminalization of space in mid-twentieth century Houston.

David Ponton gave two lectures as a Scholar-in-Residence 2016.

"It Was Like a Nightmare": Police Brutality in Houston, 1950-1967