Menna joined our doctoral program in fall 2021 to examine how early life experiences affect the health, wellbeing, school readiness, and academic outcomes of black children across the Diaspora and how intersectional, data-driven policy can promote the strength and resilience of black children and their families.

Prior to joining the program, Menna served as a classroom teacher to high school students in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and elementary and middle school-aged children in Iksan, South Korea. More recently, she was a member of the Applied Research and Evaluation group at Duke University’s Social Science Research Institute where she supported research across various academic disciplines through data management, analysis, and reporting.

Menna is drawn to the Ph.D. in Public Policy program’s research-intensive, interdisciplinary, and equity focus, and hopes to leverage the histories, lived experiences, knowledge, and voices of diverse black children and families to inform quantitative research and systems-level policy.

Menna earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her Master’s in Education in Education Policy and Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.