Dr. derria byrd

Dr. derria byrd (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an assistant professor at Marquette University. After nearly a decade in the nonprofit education sector, Dr. byrd began graduate study to investigate the factors that constrain educational opportunity and success. As a critical scholar of higher education, she draws on sociology of education, organizational studies, and critical theory to examine the institutional forces that hinder and facilitate progress toward equity for marginalized social groups. Dr. byrd’s research focuses on how the dispositions, behaviors, and practices of colleges, universities, and the institutional actors that represent them exacerbate and/or interrupt marginalization in higher education contexts. Her current research centers the lived experiences of first-generation academics—that is, former first-generation college students who now have careers in the academy. Dr. byrd is a member of the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the American Educational Research Association.