BACKGROUND: Educator, writer, and researcher from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Clarice has lived and taught in a number of cities including: St. Louis, Missouri; Atlanta, Georgia; Decatur, Illinois; and Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. Thomas’s education includes a Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning from Georgia State University and dual degrees in History and Political Science from Grand Valley State University.

EDUCATOR AND RESEARCHER: Assistant Professor at Saint Louis University in the Department of African American Studies and School of Education.

Director of the Teaching Well Institute for School Transformation (TWIST) and faculty in the Graduate Education Studies program.

Instructor for the university’s Prison Education Program and former alternative education instructor and certified Social Studies teacher for grades 6-12.

Research Areas & Methods:

• Black Studies approaches to teacher education

• Disrupting the school-to-prison nexus

• Examining the carceral state and multi-generational incarceration

• Critical narrative inquiry and Autoethnography

• Historical archival research

WRITER: Dr. Thomas’s writing combines her work as an educator with life experiences as a Black woman, mother, daughter, aunt, niece, and friend. She draws on these experiences to construct critical stories for a broad audience. A narrative inquirer and storyteller at heart and by training, Clarice’s writing centers complex stories that help understand and improve life with/in the African American community.

Current book projects: No One Can Arrest Our Dreams: Black Men Storying a Path Towards Educational Justice and Freedom (Routledge, 2024)

Emancipating Our Legacy: A Black Family’s Movement through American History

Additional Publications (Journal Articles and Book Chapters)

For more information you can submit a message on the Contact page.