Research Summary

Dr. Watts studies organizational learning and change toward racial equity in higher education, particularly by interrogating ways that Whiteness and settler colonialism serve to distract, dilute, and disrupt change efforts. As an action researcher, much of Dr. Watts’s work involves partnering with practitioners (e.g., graduate students, faculty, student and academic affairs administrators) to engage in data-informed inquiry into taken-for-granted policies, practices, and behavioral norms.

Education

• BA, English Language and Literature, Colgate University
• Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study, Academic Advising, Kansas State University
• EdM, Education Leadership & Policy Studies, Boston University
• MA, English Literature/Rhetoric & Composition, University of Georgia. Project: Specters in the Stone: Echoes of the Uncanny in Short Stories of the African Diaspora
• PhD, Education Policy Studies- Higher Education, Pennsylvania State University. Project: Response/able Funding: Mapping Faculty-Foundation Relations and the Pursuit of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and/or Racial Justice Projects