George and Ann RichardsCivil War Era Center

Biography:

Walker holds a Ph.D. in History from Rutgers University. Her research and teaching expertise include African American history, urban history, 20th century U.S. history, Public History, and the digital humanities. Dr. Walker is currently writing her book manuscript which examines the role of the high school organizing tradition in the development of black radical politics of the Black Power era. 

Walker has received funding for her research from the American Council of Learned Societies Postdoctoral Fellowship, Ford Foundation’s Dissertation Fellowship, the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Walter P. Reuther Library’s Albert Shanker Fellowship for Research in Education, Rutgers University, as well as through internal grants and fellowships from Penn State’s Richards Civil War Era Center, the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, Humanities Institute, and the Consortium on Social Movements and Education Research and Practice. Walker has presented her research at several national and international conferences, including the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the American Historical Association (AHA), the Society for the History of Children and Youth (SHCY), the Urban History Association, and the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS). Her work has been published in several journals, including The Black Scholar, Feminist Studies, The Journal of Urban History, and The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, in addition to her online publications for Black Perspectives and Washington Post.