Naomi Mae

Naomi Mae W. PhD (Dr. Mae) is an Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies in Fall 2024 and is currently an Anna Julia Cooper Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to Madison, Dr. Mae was an Associate Program Officer and Project Manager at the Spencer Foundation. In this role, she reviewed proposals across the foundation’s major grant programs and oversaw convenings that brought together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers across disciplines to address the most pressing issues in the field of education.

Dr. Mae is deeply informed by her upbringing and hometown of Southeast San Diego, CA where she learned the beginnings of community and activism. She identifies as an activist scholar and community organizer, collaborating with Black student organizations, young people, and multiracial-multiethnic intergenerational community-based organizations for over 15 years. Dr. Mae is a qualitative researcher whose current work centers youth organizers of color as they build multiracial-multiethnic coalitions to fight for educational justice in under-resourced urban districts. She uses community-based research methods, action research, and critical ethnography while leveraging youth resistance, critical race, and relational race theories in order to further the field’s understanding of the praxis required to actualize greater justice and solidarity in partnership with young people and communities.