Work with thought leaders and academic experts from Morgan State University

Adriel A. Hilton is director of Programs, Transition, and Youth Success Planning, a managerial appointment in the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families of Washington Management Service. He recently served as vice-chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management and an associate professor of education at Southern University at New Orleans. Prior to this role, Adriel was dean of students and diversity officer at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pa., where he provided strategic leadership and direction to the office of Housing and Residential Life, Community Standards, First Year & Transition Programs, Diversity & Inclusion, and International Student Services. Subsequent positions include director of the Webster University Myrtle Beach Metropolitan Extended Campus; chief of staff and executive assistant to the president at Grambling State University; assistant professor and director of the Higher Education Student Affairs program at Western Carolina University; and inaugural assistant vice president for inclusion initiatives at Grand Valley State University. Hilton honed his expertise in higher education administration and teaching at Upper Iowa University (UIU) as executive assistant to the president and assistant secretary to the board of trustees, and adjunct faculty member at both UIU and the University of Northern Iowa. He was later to be appointed UIU’s very first chief diversity officer. An avid scholar, Hilton has been a Frederick Douglass Teaching Scholar at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he taught and developed academic programs within the Office of the Provost. He also served as the first public policy fellow at the Greater Baltimore Committee, a leading regional organization comprised of civic and business leaders in Baltimore, Md. While there, Adriel worked closely with advisors to research, develop, and advocate a public policy agenda to advance the organization’s work in regional areas of concern including access to health care. Hilton is a prolific author and researcher. His research is published in a host of refereed journals, such as the *Teachers College Record*, J*ournal of College Student Development*, *Community College Review*, *Community College Journal of Research and Practice*, *Journal of Applied Research in the Community College*, and the *Journal of the Professoriate*. His numerous service commitments include membership on the editorial boards of the renowned *Journal of Negro Education* and the highly acclaimed *College Student Affairs Journal*. Dr. Hilton holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration, with a concentration in finance from Morehouse College, Atlanta, Ga.; a Master of Applied Social Science degree, with a concentration in public administration from Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, Fa.; a Master of Business Administration degree from Webster University, Saint Louis, Mo.; and, a PhD in higher education, with a concentration in administration, from Morgan State University, Baltimore, Md.

**Grant writer and USAII Certified AI Scientist (CAIS) and applied researcher in engineering materials** with over 7 years of success leading small teams of ML engineers, fostering their development and delivering impactful projects. With a proven ability to transform innovative ideas into compelling proposals, Steve has become a sought-after professional in the grant writing landscape. His dedication to excellence, strategic approach, and unwavering commitment to securing funding for impactful projects make him a true luminary in the realm of grant acquisition

Dr. Kami Fletcher started her educational career in the city where she was born and raised –Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She received her BA in English from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in 2001. She went on to receive two Master’s degrees - her MPA from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2003 and her MA in Women’s Studies from Texas Woman’s University in 2006. And it is in the state of Maryland, where she now resides with her life mate, Dr. Myron Strong, and their three sons, that in 2013 Dr. Fletcherreceived her Ph.D. in History from Morgan State University. At present, Dr. Fletcher is an Associate Professor of American & African American History and Co-Coordinator of Women’s and Gender Studies at Albright College. She teaches courses that explores the African experience in America and unpacks social and cultural U.S. history at the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality. She is also the President of the Collective for Radical Death Studies, a non-profit organization whose mission it is to decolonize Death Studies and center BIPOC voices in death work. Her research centers on African American burial grounds, late 19 th /early 20 th century Black female and male undertakers, and contemporary Black grief and mourning. She is the co-editor of Till Death Do Us Part: American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) and Grave History: Death, Race & Gender in Southern Cemeteries from Antebellum to the Post-Civil Rights Era (University of Georgia Press, forthcoming 2023). She has also authored articles and essays, which include the following: “Are Enslaved African Americans Buried at Mount Harmon Plantation? Space and Reflection for National Mourning and Memorializing” ; “Real Business: Maryland’s First Black Cemetery Journey’s into the Enterprise of Death, 1807-1920” ; “Long Live Chill #LLC: Exploring Grief, Memorial & Ritual in African American R.I.P. T-shirt Culture”. Currently, Dr. Fletcher is working on the “Culture Keeper’s” Oral History Project funded by theNational Science Foundation in collaboration with George Washington University. The project asks African American funeral service works, the nation's culture keepers, how rituals have been recreated, disrupted, reconceptualized, abandoned and sustained during the pandemic. For more on Dr. Fletcher visit her website: www.kamifletcher.com.