Faculty Director – Tyrone Howard, Ph.D.

TYRONE C. HOWARD is on the faculty in the division of Urban Schooling in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at UCLA. He also is the Faculty Director of Center X, the Founder and Director of the Black Male Institute, and an Associate faculty member in the Bunche Center for African American studies at UCLA. Dr. Howard is also the Faculty Associate Director for the Academic Advancement Program at UCLA, which is the nation's premier student retention program for underrepresented students. Formerly, Professor Howard was an Assistant Professor in the College of Education at The Ohio State University. Dr. Howard is the author of the newly released book, "Why Race and Culture Matters in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in America's Classrooms" published by Teachers College Press. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other academic publications and reports. He has published his research in The Journal of Higher Education, Teachers College Record, Theory & Research in Social Education, The Journal of Negro Education, Urban Education, and several other well-regarded academic journals. Additionally, Professor Howard has delivered over 75 keynote addresses and presented more than 150 research papers, workshops, and symposia at national higher education, education research, teacher education, and social studies conferences. Best known for his scholarship on race, culture, and education, Dr. Howard is one of the most renowned scholars on educational equity, the African American educational experience, Black males, and urban schools. In 2007, Professor Howard received an Early Career Scholar award from the American Education Research Association, the nation’s premier educational research association. He has received more than $5 million in research grants from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the Department of Education, and other sources to fund his research. In 2007, Professor Howard received the UCLA GSE&IS Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. Howard has been a guest on National Public Radio, has been featured in Diverse Issues in Higher Education, has been recognized in Who’s Who in Black Los Angeles, and is a regular urban education contributor to the New York Times.




Associate Director – Clarence L. Terry, Ph.D.

CLARENCE LA MONT TERRY is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Occidental College and the Associate Director of the Black Male Institute at UCLA. A recipient of 2009 Dr. Barbara Sizemore Award (American Educational Research Association’s Research Focus on Black Education special interest group) and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Diversity in Mathematics Education (DiME) Fellow, Dr. Terry is the author of the forthcoming journal article, "Prisons, Pipelines and the President: Developing Critical Math Literacy Through Participatory Action Research" accepted for publication in the Journal of African American Males in Education (JAAME). He has delivered invited/keynote lectures at the research pre-session of the 2009 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) national conference and the South Dakota Department of Education’s 2009 Indian Education Summit. Dr. Terry is a reviewer for Urban Education, Journal of Urban Math Education, and other academic journals. As a former classroom teacher, Dr. Terry’s current research focuses on the creation of ‘counter-space’ as an alternative environment for the mathematics education of high school-aged Black males. Within these spaces, he explores the impact of critical literacies on the formation of Black males’ racial and mathematics identities, as well as their social agency within a context of participatory action research (PAR). As an African American male who has successfully navigated K-16 mathematics curricula, Dr. Terry brings to his research a passion for the teaching and learning of mathematics, as well as a deep experiential understanding of the day-to-day struggle of someone who is not expected to achieve in academically rigorous settings. His experience teaching in urban space provides the foundation from which he currently works with pre-service and in-service educators who are engaging students across greater Los Angeles and in Southern California with socially- and racially-just pedagogies.



Graduate Student Researcher – Samarah Blackmon

Samarah Blackmon is a doctoral student in the Urban Schooling Division of the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSE&IS). In her role with BMI, Samarah serves as a Graduate Student Researcher, looking at single-sex learning spaces for Black males through the Saving Our Sons (SOS) project. Outside of the BMI, Samarah's research interests center on the schooling experiences and best practices for teaching girls of color.










Project Coordinator – Devon Miner

Devon Miner is a 2011 graduate of UCLA with a major in political science from Inglewood, California. Devon served as an undergraduate researcher for the Lumina Project upon its inception and currently serves as the Research Project Coordinator for the BMI. He has aligned himself with the efforts of BMI to improve the collegiate experience for underrepresented students, especially black males, and seeks to improve the success rates that these students have on various college campuses across the nation.










Program Coordinator – Rachael Thomas

Rachael Thomas graduated from UCLA in 2006, with a degree in philosophy. While at UCLA, she worked for the UCLA GEAR UP program as a Tutor/Mentor. And after graduation, she was a Program Coordinator for the college prep program which helped solidify her commitment and belief in educational equality. Rachael currently serves as a Program Coordinator for the BMI. Through her work with the BMI, Rachael hopes to bring her dedication to helping with black male access and retention at all levels of the educational pipeline that will ultimately assist in their success in society at large.