Meet the RRJ Team
Dr. Rich Milner is the Founding Director of the Initiative for Race Research and Justice. He serves as the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Education and Professor of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt’sPeabody College. Dr. Milner is a researcher, scholar, and leader of urban education and teacher education. Recently, he delivered the fifteenth annual Brown Lecture of the American Educational Research Association. The article is now available in Educational Researcher. The second edition of his widely-read book, Start Where You Are But Don’t Stay There: Understanding Diversity, Opportunity Gaps, and Teaching in Today’s Classrooms was published in 2020.
Dr. Ira Murray is the Associate Director of Research and Development of the Initiative for Race Research and Justice. He is an experienced nonprofit executive, researcher, and urban education scholar. Prior to joining RRJ, he was President & CEO of United Way of the Capital Area in Jackson, MS, where his work primarily focused on early childhood development, education equity, and family economic mobility.
Dr. Wonder Drake is a founding Associate Director of the Initiative for Race Research and Justice. Dr. Drake serves as Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and directs the inaugural Sarcoidosis Center of Excellence at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her career focus has been to investigate the role of infectious agents in fibrotic lung disease, with an emphasis on adaptive immune dysfunction during disease progression and its effects on clinical outcomes. Dr. Drake was also the first to identify novel mycobacterial DNA sequences within sarcoidosis granulomas, and the first to report that secreted mycobacterial virulence factors are the targets of the adaptive immune response, a question that had eluded the scientific community for decades.
Dr. Graham Reside is a founding Associate Director of the Initiative for Race Research and Justice. He is also the executive director of the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions, and assistant Professor of Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School. In addition to his work in leadership development, his interests include ethics, sociology of culture and religion, sociology of the professions, and the sociology of emotions. Dr. Reside’s research and teaching focus on the role of social institutions as vehicles of social goods and schools of moral form.
Dr. Dena Lane-Bonds is the Assistant Director for the Initiative for Race Research and Justice. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Missouri. Dena’s research focuses primarily on four areas: homelessness and housing insecurity in higher education; policies and programs that enhance the academic success of marginalized college students; social justice and equity in graduate education; and career development for international students. Her recent study explored how graduate students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity navigated their education. She has published articles in the Research in Education Journal and the Journal of Negro Education. Prior to joining the University of Missouri, Dena earned a bachelor’s degree in African American and African Diaspora Studies, and Psychology, a minor in Social Science and Medicine, and a certificate in Neuroscience from Indiana University, and her master’s degree in Educational Psychology from Northern Arizona University.
Laura Fittz is a Graduate Research Associate for RRJ and a doctoral student in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College. Laura is pursuing her Ph.D. in Justice and Diversity in Education, and she is interested in student voice, equitable discipline, and teacher preparation – particularly in urban education settings. Her current research aims to study how listening to – and working with – students can improve school culture, disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, and improve teacher preparation.
Bryant O. Best is a Graduate Research Associate for RRJ, Russell G. Hamilton Scholar, and doctoral student in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. Bryant is pursuing his PhD in Justice and Diversity in Education, and his areas of research are urban education, education policy, and culturally responsive teaching and leadership. His current research project aims to better understand policies and practices that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline so that he can help disrupt and dismantle it.