Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz 

Areas of Expertise: Access and Opportunity, Capacity Building for Equity, Cultural Relevance, Curriculum and Instruction, ELA/Writing, Healing-Centered Education, Motivational Speaking, Teacher Leadership 

Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, is a Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the 2024 Dorothy Height Distinguished Alumni Awardee from New York University. 

Named one of EdWeek's Top 1% EduScholar Influencers for four consecutive years, Yolanda is the founder of the Racial Literacy Project @TC and the Racial Literacy Roundtable Series, where for over 15 years, scholars, teachers, and students have engaged in critical conversations about race and diversity. She has appeared in Spike Lee’s 2 Fists Up: We Gon’ Be Alright (2016) and Defining Us, Children at the Crossroads of Change, documentaries highlighting racial justice and education. 

Her research, featured in leading academic journals, explores racial literacy and educational equity. She is co-editor of five books, including All About Black Girl in Education: bell hooks and Pedagogies of Love (2024), and co-author of the award-winning Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces (2021), where she introduces her concept of Archaeology of Self™ and her Racial Literacy Development (RLD) framework. 

Her poetry collections, Love from the Vortex & Other Poems (2020) and The Peace Chronicles (2021), reflect her commitment to truth, love, and healing. In 2022, she delivered her TEDx Talk, Truth, Love & Racial Literacy, at the University of Pennsylvania.