Sherell A. McArthur, PhD is an Associate Professor of Education , a community-engaged scholar, and a mother. Her research has served to transform and disrupt educational practices for girls of color and marginalized children and youth. She strives to shape the national conversation on educational justice for girls of color, who have been historically underserved, and support the next generation of university students who are seeking practical and intellectual pathways to meet some of the most pressing challenges encountered in urban schools.  She has several published articles and book chapters on her work with Black girls.   

For the last 10 years, Dr. Mac has worked with women and girls of color, supporting their identities, and educational and career aspirations. She created Beyond Your Perception, in 2014, which enabled her and 8 high school girls to focus on their media engagement, identity, and wellness. Since that time, she has facilitated 5th, 7th, 9th, and 12th grade critical media literacy collectives with girls of color in Atlanta, GA, Boston, MA, Athens, GA, and a small iteration in Cape Town, South Africa. 

She has used her expertise thus far to speak on national platforms and for organizations like Strong Women, Strong Girls, and Big Sister Boston, and has been a resource for Atlantic Magazine. Through my networks, she has been a guest lecturer at universities to explicitly discuss critical issues that girls of color face, and has been an invited panelist at the Penn Summit on Black Girls and Women in Education, the And Still We Rise Conference at Teacher’s College, the Girls of Color Conference at Rutgers University, and the Black Feminist Methods and Methodologies Working Symposium at Vanderbilt University.  

As someone with a strong sense of self and an inability to be anything but truthful, she began noticing a welcomed trend: her friends, family, and others were drawn to her, seeking advice on challenges they faced. Dr. Mac delighted in helping them discover their own resilience and courageously pursue their passions—so much so that she decided to make it her life’s mission. While Dr. Mac supports women and girls of color, and the communities they come from, her own journey has been fraught with depression, anxiety, the loss of several loved ones, and plenty of self-doubt. Thankfully, it has also been a journey of intentional searching and incredible transformation. She has decided to devote her life to help other women and girls become the best version of themselves!