Enjoying Life!

Jill M. Humphries is a native Los Angelena, a rarity in the state of California.  She has always had an intellectual and activist interest in how collectives of people make sense of their world and organize themselves.  Subsequently, her intellectual interest spans indigenous spiritual healing systems, identity, gender, and sexuality of Afro-descendent people.   More specifically, her research focuses on black ethnicity and transnational identity formation and its effect on the political and racial terrain in the United States.  Her new research agenda explores urban green spaces, communities of color, new media technology and ecotourism.  These eclectic interests led her to pursue a doctorate degree in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and master and bachelor degrees in Public Health and Anthropology from the University California, Los Angeles.   As an International Minority Fogarty Fellow she studied at Makerere University in Uganda and as an International Career Advancement Alumnae she works to increase the representation of people of color in international development and foreign affairs.   She is adjunct faculty at Queens College and the Joseph S. Murphy Institute CUNY Worker Center.  She has traveled extensively throughout Africa, the Caribbean, South America, United States, and Europe.  She has taught at Columbia and Temple University as adjunct faculty for the departments of African American Studies and Sociology and is a Visiting Scholar with the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) at Columbia University.  Her international experience includes working in Zimbabwe as a secondary school teacher, leading educational and healthcare teams to African nations and traveled extensively the African continent.   She is the creator of Rudo Enterprises an educational consulting agency engaged in public education about US foreign policy towards Africa.  She is published in several anthologies and journals, including the African Brain Circulation Beyond the Drain-Gain Debate, Cyberorganizing United States Constituencies for Africa, The New African Diaspora, Resisting ‘Race’ Organizing African Transnational Identities in the United States, and Zane’s, Missionary No More: Purple Panties II An Eroticanoir.com Anthology.   She is has also produced two photo exhibits of her African travels entitled, The Children of Africa, and The Zimbabwe Community Health Project; three educational DVDs entitled Black Female Diaspora Expressions in the United States, Interrogating White Subjectivity and Privilege in the 21st Century, and Me and My White ‘Liberal’ Professors, Reflections of a Modern Day Lynching that examine antiracist strategies.  During her leisure time she enjoys reading, photography, international travel, cycling, and rock climbing.