Professor Tya Collins’ endeavors as an educator span over a 20-year period in a range of settings that includes teaching and administration in preschool, primary, secondary, ESL, FSL, special education, vocational training, and university. She holds a PhD in Education from L'Université de Montréal and is a past SSHRC postdoctoral fellow of McGill University. Her research and pedagogy emphasize an interdisciplinary approach drawing from the fields of education, sociology, critical youth studies, Black studies, and disability studies. She conducts research in English and French and mobilizes Black radical traditions and decolonial theories and methodologies to uncover systemic barriers in student educational pathways, to challenge social, political, and cultural norms, to position youth as knowledge generators, as well as to foster creative imaginings of schooling and society which center healing, safety, joy, and care. Some of her recent work focuses on the intersections of blackness, disability, language, systemic trauma, youth resistance to structural barriers and inequalities, and postsecondary outcomes. Professor Collins is also a community advocate, consultant, researcher and partner with several organizations such as the Quebec Black Communities Observatory, l’Action Cancer du Sein du Québec, Avenues (an organization that supports youth making life-transitions from special education), as well as a founding member of the Re-Membering Us Initiative, which supports mental health and radical love in Black communities.
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