Taharka Anderson is a doctoral candidate in the department of African & African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). His phenomenological dissertation historicizes Black masculinity and draws on interviews with Black males participating in a university men’s support group at a PWI to retrospectively examine how they experienced, interpreted, and navigated punitive and exclusionary school discipline during K–12.

As a scholar-activist, educator, and former restorative justice practitioner, his broader research agenda lies at the intersection of Black Studies, Black education, and critical education studies, with a particular emphasis on antiblackness, school discipline and carceral logics, and gendered experiences. His work has been published in outlets such as Race Ethnicity and Education, Psychology of Men & Masculinity, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, the International Journal of Students as Partners, and Innovation in Aging.

He has developed an interdisciplinary research portfolio through collaborations with scholars, university administrators, and research teams across the country. At the University of Texas at Austin, he has served as a graduate researcher with the Initiative for Students as Partners in Research and Education (InSPiRE), a graduate scholar with Project M.A.L.E.S., and a graduate student mentor with the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis (IUPRA). His research contributions span artificial intelligence in higher education, the politics of Texas education, the teaching of slavery in Texas, Black male introversion, and Black male education.

During his doctoral studies, Taharka has cultivated extensive teaching and leadership experience across undergraduate and graduate education. He has guest lectured on the criminalization of Black children in schools and society in graduate-level Education, Sociology, and Human Development courses at both R1 and R2 institutions. He has also served as a graduate teaching assistant and grader in Black Studies and Sociology, where he employs critical pedagogies and collaborative learning approaches to foster students' writing, research, critical thinking, and leadership development.

He has presented his research at esteemed research conferences including those hosted by the American Education Research Association, American Anthropological Association, Critical Race Studies in Education Association, and Decoding the Disciplines. As a scholar-activist, Taharka has garnered recognition from influential platforms such as the Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color, Education Writers Association, EdSource, and USC Rossier. His engagements extend to various college, community, and non-profit organizations.

Blending his personal and professional commitments to enhancing public understanding and access to scholarly research, Taharka launched Your Neighborhood Scholar in 2020. This virtual classroom and online learning community aims to disseminate neighborhood narratives, research, and resources, contributing to justice advancement in Black communities. Additionally, Taharka serves as the Interim Political Director for the Afrikan Black Coalition (ABC), which is a non-profit that trains Black college students in leadership development, political education, and power-building.

In his previous role as a Restorative Justice Strategist & Trainer at the California Conference for Equality & Justice (CCEJ), Taharka served as a Restorative Justice practitioner at an alternative high school for three years and trained hundreds of students, teachers, administrators, and community organizers throughout California in the theories and practices of Restorative Justice.

During his master's degree pursuit, he co-founded and served as the Co-Chair of KING II KING, an autonomous student-led Black men’s support group within the Black Student Union at California State University, Long Beach. Additionally, while completing his bachelor’s degree, he held leadership roles as the President of the Student African American Brotherhood and concluded his undergraduate tenure as the President of CSULB’s Black Student Union.

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Check out Taharka’s Curriculum Vitae (CV) - A record of his academic, organizational, and community accomplishments.

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