Teaching the Psychology of Black Womanhood
Friday, October 2nd
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM EST
Danielle Dickens, Ph.D.
Dr. Danielle Dickens is a Professor of Psychology at Spelman College and a Black feminist social psychologist whose research examines the identity development and identity shifting strategies of Black women across workplace, higher education, and STEM contexts. A Spelman alumna, she earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Social and Health Psychology from Colorado State University. She is the co-author of Psychology of Black Womanhood, the field's first comprehensive textbook on the psychological experiences of Black girls and women, and directs the GRACE (Gender, Race, and Cultural Empowerment) Lab, where she has helped secure more than $11 million in research funding. Dr. Dickens recently served as President of the Spelman College Faculty Council (2024–2026) and currently serves as an Associate Editor for Psychology of Women Quarterly and an Editorial Consultant for the Journal of Black Psychology. Her scholarship, leadership, and mentorship have been recognized with numerous honors, including the 2020 APA Psychology of Black Women Foremothers Mentorship Early Career Award. As a dedicated educator and mentor, she is committed to preparing the next generation of scholars and leaders to advance equity and social change.
Dionne Stephens, Ph.D.
Dr. Dionne Stephens, PhD, is a full Professor of Psychology at Florida International University (FIU) and an internationally recognized scholar whose work examines how culture, gender, ethnicity, and social context shape health, sexuality, and identity development. Originally from Toronto, Canada, she earned her PhD in Human Development from the University of Georgia, and an MA in Women’s Studies from SUNY Buffalo.
Dr. Stephens’ interdisciplinary research focuses on marginalized populations and addresses sexual health, gender-based violence, HIV/STI prevention, media and cultural influences, health disparities, and culturally responsive public health interventions. Her active research collaborations span the United States, Canada, India, and Colombia, integrating psychological science with community-engaged and culturally grounded approaches. She is also a leading scholar in the emerging field of the Psychology of Black Womanhood and co-author of The Psychology of Black Womanhood, a multidisciplinary and intersectional academic text examining the sociohistorical and psychological experiences of Black women. Through her teaching, research, mentoring, and public scholarship, she bridges academic research with community knowledge and lived experience, translating psychological science into meaningful real-world applications.
Dr. Stephens has received recognitions for her work and community engagement from several organizations, including the APA Division 35 Foremothers’ Excellence in Mentorship Award, the APA Mid-Career Award for Multicultural Psychology, and an NIH Fogarty Global Health Equity Faculty Fellowship. Her work is grounded in a commitment to rigorous, culturally responsive scholarship that reaches beyond the academy—bringing research into conversation with communities and using psychology to better understand and address real-world health and social issues.
Carolyn West, Ph.D.
Dr. Carolyn M. West is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Washington where she teaches courses on the Psychology of Black women. She is an award-winning author, internationally recognized speaker, documentary filmmaker, and expert witness. For more than three decades, she has been investigating images of Black women in the media and gender-based violence, with a special focus on domestic violence and sexual assault in the lives of Black women. She has authored more than 100 academic publications, including Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue and Mammy, Sapphire, Jezebel and the Bad Girls of Reality Television (in the textbook Lectures on the Psychology of Women). Dr. West has been a featured expert on Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith and documentaries, including Chris Brown: A History of Violence and Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy.
