Meet Na'ilah Suad Nasir


In 2017, Na’ilah Suad Nasir became the sixth President of the Spencer Foundation. She holds a faculty appointment in Education and African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (currently on leave) and served as UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion from 2015 to 2017.

Dr. Nasir’s research examines the racialized and cultural nature of learning and schooling, with a particular focus on the experiences of African American students in schools and communities. In a forthcoming co-edited book, We Dare Say Love: Supporting Achievement in the Educational Life of Black Boys, Nasir explores the teaching practices and organization of the African American Male Initiative in Oakland, the first district-wide initiative of it’s kind focuses on supporting the achievement of Black male students. She is also the author of Racialized Identities: Race and achievement for African-American youth, published by the Stanford University Press in 2012, and co-editor of Mathematics for Equity: A Framework for Successful Practice, published by Teachers College Press in 2014.  Her work has examined the organization of learning in cultural practices outside of school, the intersection of identity and learning, and equitable teaching in mathematics. Dr. Nasir is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association.

At UC Berkeley, Dr. Nasir served as chair of the African American Studies Department from 2012 to 2015 and was on the faculty in the School of Education at Stanford University from 2000 to 2008.

Reach out to Dr. Nasir on Twitter to say THANK YOU for the education research the work that she does! Be sure to use the hashtag #ThankAScientist.

@ProfNai