Kia Turner

Kia Turner, from San Diego, California, is pursuing a PhD in race, inequality, and language in education at Stanford Graduate School of Education. She graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in history and literature in 2016, and from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2017 as a member of the founding cohort for the Harvard Teacher Fellows Program. She is also pursuing her JD at Yale Law School. She hopes to use abolitionist theory to explore how the understanding and practice of community informs Black and Brown students' experiences of punishment and justice in schools. Kia taught middle school English in Harlem for five years where she instituted a culturally relevant "Tools for Liberation" advisory curriculum. Kia received Teaching Tolerance's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the National Council of English Teacher's Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award.