Crystal Martin

Crystal M. Martin, Ph.D. is a community psychologist, educator, and racial equity researcher with over a decade of experience advancing transformative change in urban education systems. She currently serves as a Senior Equity Associate at the NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, where she leads policy-informed initiatives focused on culturally responsive education, healing-centered schools, and systemic equity.

Dr. Martin’s work sits at the intersection of public scholarship, community-based research, and education policy. Her scholarship is grounded in freedom dreaming, youth participatory action research, and critical race theory, and explores how schools can become sites of healing, belonging, and institutional transformation. She has held policy fellowships with the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, and has served as a project associate for the NYSED Office of Special Education’s TAP for Equity, supporting school systems in Manhattan and the Bronx.

Dr. Martin brings extensive experience from the field, having served as a school counselor, department chair, and mental health professional in Chicago Public Schools, where she championed equity-centered leadership and strengths-based student support. Her writing has been featured in NYU Metro Center’s Belonging & Becoming blog series and across platforms focused on race, identity, and public education.

She holds a Ph.D. in Community Psychology from National Louis University and has completed post-graduate studies in urban education leadership at Harvard University. Dr. Martin’s work is committed to bridging the worlds of academia, policy, and practice to co-create liberatory futures for Black and Brown youth.