Nina Owolabi
STAR Fellow, SPARK Collaborative Support
Bio
Nina Owolabi is a mama-scholar who has spent the last 17 years advocating for youth, college students, and their families. That effort has included student, program, and curriculum development work in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, studying education policy, organization, and leadership with a concentration in higher education. Nina is also a Senior Research Assistant at the Office of Community College Research and Leadership. Her research centers on the Black student experience at community colleges. Threads of her research draw upon a critical lens to explore the lived experiences of parenting students, interrogating the community college as a place of access and enclosure. Nina's journey as an educator, storyteller, (and more recently) a mama, and researcher shapes her belief that colleges need to be spaces of radical hospitality, with particular attention to creating welcoming spaces for historically excluded folx through policy and practice.
Bio
Nina Owolabi is a mama-scholar who has spent the last 17 years advocating for youth, college students, and their families. That effort has included student, program, and curriculum development work in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, studying education policy, organization, and leadership with a concentration in higher education. Nina is also a Senior Research Assistant at the Office of Community College Research and Leadership. Her research centers on the Black student experience at community colleges. Threads of her research draw upon a critical lens to explore the lived experiences of parenting students, interrogating the community college as a place of access and enclosure. Nina's journey as an educator, storyteller, (and more recently) a mama, and researcher shapes her belief that colleges need to be spaces of radical hospitality, with particular attention to creating welcoming spaces for historically excluded folx through policy and practice.