Sekile Nzinga-Johnson once served as the Director of the Women’s Center and a lecturer in Gender & Women’s Studies at Northwestern University. She also is the co-chair of our campus wide task force to support trans and non-binary faculty, staff and students at Northwestern and is the advisor for the College Feminists.
Prior to Northwestern, she was a professor in the fields of Social Work and Women & Gender Studies and was the director of Women and Gender Studies at Nazareth College of Rochester. Her research and teaching have centered on the intersections of race, class, and gender in reproduction and parenting; critical feminist university studies; and health & family policy.
She is the editor of Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering and the Academy (Demeter, 2013). Her second book Lean Semesters: The University as Hyper Producer of Inequity with Johns Hopkins University Press is forthcoming, and her third book project, Networks of Freedom: Reproductive Activism in Chicago is in progress. She is also author of a fourth book, Lean Semesters: How Higher Education Reproduces Inequity.
In addition to her academic career, Nzinga-Johnson’s professional life and feminist praxis focus on reproductive justice, healing from sexual violence, and intersectional feminist leadership. She is a board member of the Chicago Abortion Fund and is a member of the Illinois Women’s Justice Taskforce.
Dr. Sekile M. Nzinga left Northwestern early in 2021. She currently works for Illinois Governor Pritzker as the Chief Diversity Officer.