Faith Northern is the Communications and Outreach Manager at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools. In this role, she implements a range of strategies to engage stakeholders in the Research Alliance’s work, and promotes the use of evidence in NYC’s education system. Faith has also supported research efforts at the Research Alliance, including planning and preparatory work for an interdisciplinary project focused on the structural, educational, and mental health factors shaping high school non-completion among NYC youth.
Faith brings experience with educational programming, community outreach and engagement, and qualitative research methods, including intergroup dialogue, focus groups, observations, and interviews. Before joining the Research Alliance, Faith was a graduate research analyst for NYU’s Office of Academic Program Review & Assessment, and the lead program coordinator for NYU Steinhardt's SHARE-CSD program, which provides paid summer research experience to students from underrepresented groups in STEM and health-related fields. Faith also served as a programming assistant for SEEDS: Access Changes Everything, a nonprofit that prepares motivated, high-achieving, low-income students for admission to private schools and colleges. Faith’s prior experience also includes collecting and analyzing data about the experiences of immigrant, Afro-Caribbean women teachers and working with the Poughkeepsie Children's Cabinet as a community engagement partner volunteer. Faith is interested in the intersections of education, race, and identity, particularly for students from the Afro-Caribbean and African diaspora, and the ways in which systemic structures and socio-political contexts shape the educational landscapes for marginalized communities, and is currently working on her dissertation, tentatively titled, Antiblackness in the Academy: The Stories of Afro-Caribbean Students in Higher Education.
Faith is a first-generation doctoral candidate in the Sociology of Education program at NYU Steinhardt. She earned a Bachelor's of Arts in Biochemistry, Educational Studies, and History from Vassar College, and a Master's in Philosophy in Sociology of Education from New York University.