Dr. Rashad Arman Timmons (he/him) is a community builder, keyboardist, writer, scholar, and Black feminist educator from Detroit, Michigan, the ancestral and present homelands of the Anishinaabe. He teaches and writes broadly about the racial politics of urban infrastructure in the midwestern United States, specifically Black people's longstanding use of the built environment to imagine a freer and more just world. Rashad earned his Ph.D. in African American and African Diaspora Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, where he researched the violent and racist history of infrastructural development (e.g., railways, roads, telecommunications) and policing in Ferguson, Missouri. Rashad is currently a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara, working under the mentorship of Dr. Jaime Alvez. 

 

Alongside his scholarly work, Rashad serves and organizes with the Michael Brown Sr. Chosen for Change Organization to uplift the life and legacy of Michael "Mike Mike" Brown Jr. He currently lives in Oakland, California—the unceded lands of the Lisjan Ohlone—where he delivers political education to Bay Area youth and supports organizations working to end police terrorism in the U.S. and abroad.