Danae Bradley-Morris (she/her) is Guided by Black feminist perspectives and a reproductive justice praxis, her research focuses on the intersection of reproductive health and mass incarceration. She uses mixed methodologies to examine how processes and practices within U.S. carceral systems impact reproductive health outcomes, with a particular focus on Black women and mothers. 

Her dissertation examined the perspectives and experiences of Black doulas – non-medical care workers trained in pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum support – who work with incarcerated pregnant and postpartum women. In particular, she examined how the intersection of race, gender, violence, and incarceration presents unique challenges and described how Black doulas navigate these complexities in order to provide care. Her research not only amplifies the voices of Black doulas but also highlights the broader structural issues within the criminal legal and maternal healthcare systems.

Denae is currently completing her PhD in Medical Sociology at Howard University and is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health Policy Research Scholar (HPRS). Additionally, she is an alumna of the Birth Equity Research Scholars program with Reproductive Health Impact (formerly the National Birth Equity Collaborative), demonstrating her commitment to advancing reproductive health equity.

C. Darius Gordon (they/them) is an interdisciplinary scholar of global Black studies. They are currently in their final semester of the Critical Studies of Race, Class, & Gender program at the University of California, Berkeley School of Education. In the fall, they will begin a postdoctoral fellowship in the Center for Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Broadly, their work explores the history of ideas that animated movements for social change across the Atlantic, with a particular focus on the 20th-century Portuguese-speaking world. Using archival methods, oral history interviews, and close readings of literary and cultural publications, Darius analyzes the cultural politics of struggles against global antiblackness, colonialism, and imperialism, as well as the possibilities and constraints for transnational political solidarity. At JHU they will primarily focus on their first book project, tentatively titled Nossa Luta: Black Internationalism and Ideas of a Common Struggle. Their work has been published in venues such as the Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies, Comparative Education Review, and Black Perspectives. Their research has been supported by the National Academy of Education, the Spencer Foundation, and grants and fellowships from UC Berkeley through the Global, International, and Area Studies research hub, the Mellon Black Studies Collaboratory, the Center for Race and Gender, the Center for African Studies, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the UC Chancellor’s Office.