Team Members

Fellows

Jeneanne Collins

Jeneanne Collins

Community Arts Fellow

MA, Maryland Institute College of Art 

Gilman 90 B
jcolli88@jhu.edu 

Jeneanne Collins is a practicing performance poet and community artist, and sometimes a mixed – media creator. Recently, she served as an Artist in Residence at Union Baptist Church where she conducted oral archive interviews as part of the B&O Railroad Museum’s Oral History Project in partnership with the church. She developed a series of workshop responses entitled “Churches & Trains”, Black History Every Day. Collins is also a member of the #nopermission collective, a group of artists that use visual, performance and alternative art to activate/charge historically oppressed spaces.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Jasmine Blanks Jones

Jasmine Blanks Jones

RIC Postdoctoral Fellow

PhD, University of Pennsylvania

Gilman 90 D
jblanks2@jhu.edu 

Jasmine L. Blanks Jones is a dynamic theatre nonprofit leader, award-winning educator, and holds a dual PhD in Education and Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research on theatrical performance as a civic engagement praxis illuminates global race-based inequities in education and health, lifting the potential of knowledge co-creation through the arts and digital cultural production.

As founder of Burning Barriers Building Bridges Youth Theatre (B4YT), a cultural performance company dedicated to radical community empowerment through the arts, she has more than twenty years of experience in youth development in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Having developed a track record of leadership in arts and advocacy in communities of Color globally, in 2018 Jasmine extended the scope of B4YT to include a consulting practice, Creating Brave Stages, which provides support and guidance for advocacy organizations looking to integrate the arts into their movements and artists aspiring to create positive change through their performances. She holds a MPP from the University of Minnesota and BS in Music Education from Florida A&M University.

Daniel Cumming

Daniel Cumming

RIC Postdoctoral Fellow

PhD, New York University

Gilman 90 E
dcummi11@jhu.edu 

Daniel Cummings has a Ph.D. in U.S. History from New York University, an M.A in Social Sciences from University of Chicago, and an M.A. in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University. His research examines racial inequality in twentieth-century Baltimore by exploring the shifting terrain of housing, labor, and health through the rise of medical institutions and the fall of manufacturing. As I argue in my dissertation, the toxic features of the Jim Crow industrial order became social, political, even embodied, foundations of the postindustrial metropolis. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Cummings lived in Baltimore and taught high school students at Carver Vocational-Technical High School.

Staff

Tonika Berkley

Tonika Berkley

Archivist for Africana Collections

MA, University of Maryland, College Park

410-516-5492
tberkle1@jhu.edu 

Ms. Berkley is a historical researcher, museum educator and curator, working for various museums in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, including the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Industry, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, and Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. In 2018-19, Ms. Berkley served as Research Coordinator and Curator of prototype physical and digital exhibitions for “Education Will Be Our Pride: The Colored School at the Peale (1878-89)”, and curator of a 3D scanned tour of the Peale building, based on the history of Male and Female Colored School No. 1. She also coordinated the development of a microsite, “School1,” an online repository for the history of 19th century education of African Americans in Baltimore City and surrounding counties.

Ms. Berkley earned her Bachelor’s degree from UMBC in Sociology/Anthropology, her Master’s Degree in Applied Anthropology (Heritage/Historical Archeology track) from the University of Maryland College Park and her teaching credentials from Notre Dame of Maryland University. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Arts Administration and Museum Leadership from Drexel University.

Angela Koukoui

Angela Koukoui

Co-Director of the JHU-UB Community Archives Program

MLIS, University of Maryland, College Park

410-837-4268
arodgerskoukoui@ubalt.edu 

Angela Koukoui is an Outreach Archivist and Public Service Coordinator at the University of Baltimore RLB Library, Special Collections, and Archives, where she leads instruction sessions in archival literacy. Angela has taught Community Archive Workshops through various partnerships and collaborations since 2017. In her archival work, Angela worked on the Preserve the Baltimore Uprising project at the Maryland Historical Society and curated The Baltimore Cultural Arts Program, 1964-1993 photography exhibit at UB in 2016. A revised version of The Baltimore Cultural Arts Program, 1964-1993, was featured as a digital exhibit in 2020. In 2021, Angela curated 40 years of HIV/AIDS digital exhibit collaborating with the Baltimore City Health Department in spring 2021.

Shawntay Stocks

Shawntay Stocks

Assistant Director of Fellowships and Community Engagement

PhD, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Merganthaler 227
(443) 297-7827
sstocks3@jhu.edu 

Dr. Shawntay Stocks has over a decade of experience in service and community-based learning, coordinating service and diversity programs, and teaching. Dr. Stocks obtained her Bachelor’s degree in History from Guilford College, Master’s degree in English and African-American Literature from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and her Ph.D. in the Language, Literacy and Culture program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her dissertation research focused on faculty diversity within higher education. Dr. Stocks is trained in Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) which she utilizes in planning and executing training in areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and community-based learning. Additionally, Dr. Stocks uses her poetry as a reflective tool within her workshops and trainings.

Faculty

Kali-Ahset Amen

Kali-Ahset Amen

Principal Investigator, Lead, Curatorial Affairs and Africana Archives Initiatives

PhD, Emory University

Nathan Connolly

Nathan Connolly

Convener, Racism and Repair in the Modern Academy

PhD, University of Michigan

Gabrielle Dean

Gabrielle Dean

Curator

PhD, University of Washington

Lawrence Jackson

Lawrence Jackson

Convener, Working Group on Slavery, Conciliation and Justice

PhD, Stanford University

Jennifer Kingsley

Jennifer Kingsley

Associate Teaching Professor and Director, Museums and Society

PhD, Johns Hopkins University (History of Art)

Joseph Plaster

Joseph Plaster

Curator

PhD, Yale University

Headshot of Stuart Schrader in red shirt

Stuart Schrader

Convener, Racism and Repair in the Modern Academy

PhD, New York University