Lauren Leigh Kelly is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University and founder of the Hip Hop Youth Research and Activism Conference. Dr. Kelly taught high school English for ten years in New York where she also developed courses in Hip Hop Literature, Spoken Word poetry, and Theatre Arts. Kelly’s research focuses on critical literacies, Black feminist theory, Hip Hop pedagogy, critical consciousness, and the development of critical, culturally sustaining pedagogies.
Lauren Leigh Kelly’s fellowship project Transforming Schools and Communities through Critical Hip Hop Literacies: An Exploration of Youth Agency and Critical Consciousness in Hip Hop Education examines how youth activate Hip Hop culture and their collective imaginations as a mechanism for social transformation. Drawing upon data collected from over 10 years of case study and social design-based research with youth inside and outside of K-12 classrooms, Kelly’s work explores the role of Hip Hop in developing antiracist teaching pedagogies and in fostering the agentive and speculative capacities of Hip Hop-identified youth.