Muna-Udbi Ali

rebsl — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 17:27:39 +0000

Dr. Muna-Udbi A. Ali (she/they) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Environment and Urban Change (EUC), specializing in Black Studies in Geography and Environment, at �첥��Ƶ in Toronto, Canada. Before joining the faculty of EUC, Ali worked as an Assistant Professor at California State University San Marcos, and as a Visiting Faculty member at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. Trained as an interdisciplinary scholar, her primary research covers diverse theoretical foci including Black studies, critical refugee and migration studies, critical race studies, Black feminist studies, Black geographies, transnational feminism, environmental justice, popular education, critical Muslim studies, public policy, critical pedagogy, and higher education studies. She has published several book chapters and scholarly articles in journals including The Black Scholar, Darkmatter, Reconsidering Development, and The Conversation, among others. Outside of academia, Ali is a community worker, curriculum and policy consultant, researcher, and anti-oppression educator. She has designed curricula and policies on gender-based violence, Afrocentric education, and anti-racist praxis. She has worked in education and curriculum development in Canada, United States, Kenya, and Somalia.

Keywords: Black Studies, Black geographies, Black feminist theories and methods, critical refugee studies, higher education studies, critical pedagogy, popular education, environmental justice, public policy, and surveillance studies.

Dee Marksman-Phillpotts

rebsl — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:35:41 +0000

Dee Markman-Phillpotts (they/them) is a Black, trans, non-binary educator, researcher, and community advocate whose work centers Black trans life, collective care, and liberatory futures. A PhD student with a background in social work and sexuality studies, their research examines how intersecting systems of anti-Black racism, gender-based violence, queer and transphobia, and poverty shape the lived realities of Black and marginalized communities.
Grounded in Black feminist methodologies and abolitionist praxis, Dee’s scholarship interrogates dominant discourses that render Black trans people hypervisible as sites of harm yet invisible in policy, care infrastructures, and knowledge production. They are particularly interested in how communities cultivate survival strategies, mutual aid networks, and embodied practices of care that challenge carceral logics and reimagine safety beyond the state.
Through teaching, community-engaged research, and public scholarship, Dee works to bridge academic and grassroots spaces, insisting that knowledge is most transformative when it is accountable to the communities from which it emerges.

Keywords: Black Trans Studies; Queer of Colour Critique: Black Feminist Thought; Intersectionality; Anti-Black Racism; Gender-Based Violence; Abolitionist Frameworks; Transformative Justice; Collective Care; Critical Pedagogy; Anti-Oppressive Education

Critical Pedagogy | The Harriet Tubman Institute

Muna-Udbi Ali

Dee Marksman-Phillpotts