Nicole Burrowes

Nicole Burrowes is a Ph.D. candidate in History and pursuing the Certificate in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy at the City University of New York Graduate Center.  Her research fields include African Diaspora history, Latin American and Caribbean history, social movements, and the politics of decolonization.  Nicole is currently working on her dissertation: “Envisioning Guyana: Race, Nation and Diaspora, 1945-1979,” which explores Caribbean nation-building and African-Asian solidarity. 

She has served as a full-time mentor and advisor for the Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Summer Institute for the last five years working with undergraduates interested in pursing graduate studies in Africana Studies.  She has also worked as an adjunct lecturer at City College’s downtown campus, the Center for Worker Education, and the Murphy Institute at Queens College.  Her awards include the President’s Magnet Fellowship (CUNY Graduate Center), the American Association for the Improvement of Boxing Scholarship, and most recently, a Pre-doctoral Fellowship appointment in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department (University of Texas, Austin) for the 2011-2012 academic year.

In her life outside of academia, she has worked extensively as a community organizer, in communications, and in the documentary film industry for several organizations including Firelight Media (which just produced the film Freedom Riders), the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing, the Children’s Defense Fund, Third World Within, and Sista II Sista Freedom School for Young Women of Color, which she co-founded.  Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Nicole received her B.A. in history from New York University and graduated from George Washington University’s Institute for Historical Documentary Filmmaking.