Sharmaine Jackson, Ph.D.

Sharmaine Jackson serves as the Racial Equity Director at the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) at the University of Colorado Boulder. In her role, she spearheads the incorporation of racial equity strategies throughout the organization, collaborating closely with NCWIT’s leadership, researchers, alliance and program managers, and consultants. Her work encompasses training and education, the development of racial equity initiatives, and policy formation. Leveraging her extensive background in social science and law, she advocates for the transformative power of diverse teams to drive innovation. 

Prior to joining NCWIT, Sharmaine was the Director of the Africana Studies Program at Stetson University, where she nurtured a culture of equity and inclusion through various initiatives aimed at dismantling systemic barriers and fostering diversity. She is a seasoned researcher, with a focus on how communities and young people utilize local knowledge, collective action, and the arts to counter social inequality. She examines these elements through the lenses of race, class and gender. Her comparative work, especially in Australia, enhances her insights into these dynamics.

During her tenure as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Urban Ethnography Project at Yale, Sharmaine played a pivotal role in exploring and advancing innovative, community-led solutions for violence prevention and social renewal. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California Irvine, where she was a Fellow of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding and the Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy. Additionally, she earned a Juris Doctor, with a concentration in Taxation from Rutgers School of Law, Newark. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Women’s Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her extensive and diverse experience forms a strong base that underpins her 20-year commitment to nurturing inclusivity and belonging across multiple institutional environments.