Maisha T. Winn

Maisha T. Winn is the Excellence in Learning Professor in the Graduate School of Education where she also serves as the faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning's Equity in Learning Initiative. She is also the Principal Investigator of the Futuring for Equity Lab. An ethnographer by training, Dr. Winn examines the intersection of language, literacy, and culture. Her research seeks to understand how non-dominant communities curate independent teaching and learning spaces to engage in writing, reading, and learning.

Dr. Winn was the A 2022-23 Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford and is a member of the National Academy of Education. She is a past president (2025-2026) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and is also an AERA Fellow.

Dr. Winn has authored several books including: Writing in Rhythm: Spoken Word Poetry in Urban Classrooms; Black Literate Lives: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives; Girl Time: Literacy, Justice, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline; and Justice on Both Sides: Transforming Education through Restorative Justice. She co-edited Faith Made Flesh: The Black Child Legacy Campaign for Transformative Justice and Healthy Futures (with Lawrence “Torry” Winn, Vajra Watson, and Kindra F. Block); Restorative Justice in Education: Transforming Teaching and Learning through the Disciplines (with Lawrence “Torry” Winn); and Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry with Youth and Communities (with Django Paris). Her work has also appeared in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science; International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education; Review of Research in Education, Mind, Culture and Activity; and Anthropology & Education Quarterly.

Her new book, Futuring Black Lives: Independent Black Institutions and the Literary Imagination, follows the work of institution builders during the Black Arts Movement (1965-1975) and how they leveraged the literary imagination in service of world-building.