Stephanie Y. Evans, PhD, is an impactful scholar, author, and researcher. For more than three decades, she has been committed to the profession of higher education, however, she is currently focusing on uprooting the normalization of stress and to making institutions more humane, sane, and equitable.
Dr. Evans is a Professor of Black Women's Studies, faculty in the Institute for Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and affiliate faculty in the Department of Africana Studies at Georgia State University. She is also affiliate faculty in the Center for the Study of Africa and Its Diaspora as well as in the Center for the Study of Stress, Trauma and Resilience.
With research interest in Black women's intellectual history, specifically memoirs, mental health, and wellness, Dr. Evans began studying Black women’s wellness in 2013. How Black women educators have navigated the relentless demands of academia has been a particular focus of her writing, teaching, and speaking. Her work evolved to include mental health and wellness as a way to address systemic stressors of being department chair, an experience she knows firsthand after serving as a department chair for twelve years at several institutions.
She is also the editor of the Black Women’s Wellness book series at SUNY Press. Her edited books include, Dear Department Chair: Letters from Black Women Leaders to the Next Generation (2023), Black Women and Social Justice Education (2019), and Black Women's Mental Health: Balancing Strength and Vulnerability (2017). In 2015, she edited Phylon: Review of Race and Culture, reviving the journal founded by W. E. B. Du Bois at Clark Atlanta University.
In addition to her books, Dr. Evans has published numerous articles in Western Journal of Black Studies, Peace Studies Journal, Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, Feminist Teacher, Florida Historical Quarterly, and African American Research Perspectives, among others. Dr. Evans shares how to manage stress while navigating the tasks of academic writing or administrative challenges, especially for those in marginalized fields or those in leadership positions during times of personal, national, or global crises.
