Greetings, my name is Dr. Mariama.
I am a daughter of Detroit, Michigan and Monrovia, Liberia. You can find me journeying through academia as a Black intellectual enthusiast, OrgCrit researcher, and learner of emancipatory data science.
Black Intellectual Enthusiast
I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors, a lineage of Black thinkers across the African Diaspora, who answer(ed) the call of liberating the world with our minds. I can “almost” guarantee that any contributions from social inquiry to scientific innovation has roots in Black intellectual thought. That “almost” fuels my Blackademic journey of discovering the intellectual roots of my ancestors and disseminating it across the world.
OrgCrit Researcher
On the practical arm of my research agenda, I study how knowledge-based organizations are socialized to recruit, retain, and promote Black thinkers—particularly within higher education. On the philosophical arm of my research agenda, I develop conceptual models that critically integrate Black intellectual thought with organizational theory to deconstruct how the afterlife of slavery reifies itself through organizational processes, structures, and logics.
Emancipatory Data Science
On January 1, 2020, I created an affirmation board as motivation to finish writing my dissertation and officially become Dr. Mariama. One piece of that affirmation board says, “Data has a story to tell. You will give it a voice.” Behind that quote is an image of a doctor standing next to their patient—a clear depiction of how our relationship with data and each other has the power of life and death. In this era of technological advances, we see the ways data can be used to develop and destroy societies. This is the spectrum of emancipatory data science I am learning to leverage at this phase of my Blackademic career. I have a particular interest in exploring how technology can be used as tools of liberation to recover and reveal data stories—especially those across the African Diaspora that are often silenced, forgotten, and weaponized.
“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden”
Matthew 5:14