In August, we announced that Action4Equity and Forsyth Futures were awarded a grant through the Kate B. Reynolds Foundation to operationalize our systems change, community-engaged research model aimed at shifting power and centering practices of data equity in our work. As part of this strategy, Forsyth Futures and Action4Equity proposed to create a shared position between our organizations to lead community based participatory research and advance the development of the Forsyth Family Power Visionary Panel infrastructure.
We are excited to announce and introduce Dr. Crystal Ellis, the new Director of Community Engaged Research. Dr. Ellis joins the A4E and Forsyth Futures teams with an extensive background in both community organizing and research. Please read her full bio below.
Dr. Crystal Ellis holds her Ph.D in African and African Diaspora Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the primary focus of her research has been community development practices, and the transformative impact of these practices on the lives of marginalized people. In her most recent work, she has led the development of research and campaign strategy in partnership with University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, Dr. Ellis has recently provided private qualitative research consulting regarding the antiviolence movement in the United States.
More of her extensive research experience includes collections in Washington D.C. Charlotte North Carolina and assistance on research projects in Nova Scotia. Her research in North Carolina, was a part of work with an international team that centered interviewing Black women around their experiences with racism, sexism and their political perceptions. Dr. Ellis has conducted historical archival research at the Library of Congress, New York Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture and the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in Manhattan, she has also collected data from live research participants; focusing on Black women in most of her work. From 2012-2014 prior to entering graduate school, Dr. Ellis served as a program and research assistant for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, where she conducted community research with non-profit organizers using community forums, surveys and focus groups, and assisted with program development for the Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative.
At the core of her work over the past ten years, has been mending the disjointment between theory and practice for the purpose of improving people’s lives. In addition to her Ph.D she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Alverno College. Her published work includes a fiction novel, For the Ghosts of Detroit, and published dissertation: NAACP in Defense of Black Women 1945-1995 where she pinpoints the practical impact of institutional theory.
