Dr. Sonya Douglass is a Professor of Education Leadership and the Chair of the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on education policy, politics, and leadership, and she teaches courses on that topic as well as the social and political contexts of urban education and school reform, and Black education in the post-civil rights era, among others.
She is the Co-Director of the Teachers College Urban Education Leaders Program, an Executive Ed.D. program for aspiring urban district-level school leaders. She is also the founding director of the Black Education Research Center (BERC), which conducts research to improve the educational experiences and outcomes of Black students in the United States and worldwide.
Sonya is the author of five lauded books, with her first book, 2011’s “Learning in a Burning House” receiving a Critics Choice Book Award from the American Educational Studies Association. She’s also published more than 20 journal articles, and presented or served as a keynote speaker at more than 100 conferences.
She served as faculty coordinator for the United States-South Africa Racial Justice Fellowship Program, a partnership between Teachers College and University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) funded by the U.S. Department of State, and board member for the Lemann Center for Leadership and Equity in Education headquartered in Brazil.
Sonya earned her doctorate in educational leadership and a Master of Public Administration, both from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She also holds an undergraduate degree in communications and journalism from Colorado State University.
