Dr. Jessica S. Samuel is an Afro-Caribbean woman who hails from the U.S. Virgin Islands. She is an educational equity expert whose academic scholarship and professional experiences focus on race, education, colonialism and the environment, including where they all might converge, in the United States and Caribbean. For over a decade, Dr. Samuel has taught and coached K-postgraduate students as well as advised school districts and education organizations hoping to advance systemic change. She is an appointed member of the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and is a member of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC).
Her dissertation, “Consuming the U.S. Virgin Islands: Conservation and Education in America’s Paradise,” interrogates conservation colonialism’s impact on educational aims on the island of St. John where she grew up. Dr. Samuel's research has been supported by The Social Welfare History Project, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Social Science Research Council and Mellon Foundation.
Dr. Samuel holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Boston University, an M.Ed. in Secondary Education from the University of Missouri, and a B.A. in Anthropology and African American Studies from Wesleyan University.
To learn more about Dr. Jessica S. Samuel and her other work, visit
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