Sonja Peterson-Lewis is an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies at Temple University. She has taught courses on the psychology of the Black experience, family dynamics, cinema, and mass media. She holds her PhD in Psychology from the University of Florida-Gainesville. Her research interests include the effects of media, factors affecting students’ academic preparation, and the dramaturgy of identity. She is the founder of the Temple Undergraduate Research Forum (TURF), a University-wide event sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies. She founded the Annual AAS Senior Research conference, several colloquium series for graduate students/faculty, and the annual Ceremony of the Drums for graduating students and their families. As a Provost’s Fellow in the late 1990s, she spent a year in the School District of Philadelphia with the charge of determining factors that affected local graduate’s performance on the University’s freshman curriculum. Her findings led to a Commonwealth grant with which she developed the Introduction to College culture Workshop Series. A second grant brought college and high school mathematics and English/composition teachers together to create high school-to-college transition assignments.
Academic Center on Research in Diversity at Temple University