Dr. Dawn Demps: Protecting Against Exclusionary Educational Practices and Policies

Dawn Demps is a mother, bridge, interrupter and scholar who is a Flint, MI native that has been involved with youth and educational programming, community advocacy and organizing for over 25 years. She utilizes her own lived experiences to connect with students and parents to promote tools for self-advocacy, structural reforms and strives to champion the concerns of these populations in her research foci.Dawn holds a BA in Africana Studies and Social Sciences with a concentration in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Michigan-Flint.

She acquired her MA in Social Justice Studies from Marygrove College in Detroit, MI and received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University in Education Policy and Evaluation with a graduate certification in African Diasporic Studies. Her research is concerned with the varying presentations of educational agency practiced historically and contemporaneously in Black communities that protect against exclusionary educational practices and policies. She has published articles examining the possibilities of youth inspired school leadership as exhibited through youth voice and participatory action research, unpacking the difficulties and potential of Black and Brown collaborative educational leadership and how art can be used to reveal the insights of Black youth who  have experienced school exclusion.

She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Education in Education Policy Studies and Practice.Among Dawn’s recognitions are the 2025 Scholars Strategy Network Policy Fellow, 2024 University of Arizona College of Education Outstanding Faculty, Teaching, and Mentoring Award and 2024 Erasmus Circle Faculty Fellow, 2024 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry Outstanding Dissertation Honorable Mention and the 2023 American Educational Research Association Social Context of Education Dissertation of the Year Award. She was further acknowledged by the Arizona House of Representatives for “Outstanding Achievement” in service to public education and in 2020/21 received the American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship and Arizona State University Dissertation Completion Fellowship.