Joseph Derrick Nelson is a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for the Study of Boys’ and
Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania. An expert on black boyhood, masculinity, and education, his research explores how stereotypes influence the identity development of high-achieving black boys during childhood and early adolescence. Nelson is a visiting assistant professor of Education at Columbia University, on sabbatical from Swarthmore College, where he’s an assistant professor of educational studies. Previously, he taught first grade in a single-sex classroom for black boys, in the poor neighborhood where he grew up in Milwaukee, WI. Nelson’s forthcoming book is Never Give Up: Resilience, Academic Success, and Middle School Black Boys.
