Jessica Lee Stovall

Dr. Jessica Lee Stovall (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the director of The SoulFolk Collective. Jessica had the pleasure of seeing some examples of research spaces that strove to be Black-affirming when she was in graduate school, and she knew as soon as she began at UW-Madison that she wanted to build an intellectual community where the focus is on the resilience, creativity, brilliance, and freedom dreams of Black people, instead of just the trauma and harm. Before beginning her doctoral studies at Stanford, Jessica taught English and reading for 11 years in the Chicagoland area, and she is trying to finish 52 novels by the end of the calendar year.