Background

Ebony is a PhD student in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. She graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2012 and received her MS in education from Johns Hopkins University in 2016. During her time as an undergraduate student, she founded and managed the Reach Initiative, a college-preparation organization which offered services free of charge to local urban youths. Her research experiences were further honed during an internship at the University of Virginia – Curry School of Education Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) where she investigated the nuances of teacher-student racial dynamics. After completing her undergraduate studies, Hinton went on to serve as a secondary educator in Miami, Florida.

Research

Ebony’s research interests lie in the social dynamics between schools and local communities; particularly involving issues of trust, mutual investment, and sustained collaboration. She is also interested in understanding schools as organizations and how school-level practices and policy implementation work to meet the social and emotional needs of students. Ebony wants her work to contribute to a better understanding of the role of school contextual factors in policy implementation—especially for reforms relating to school culture, climate and safety. Through her work at the Consortium for Chicago School Research (CCSR), she secured a position on a research team investigating the role of exposure to community violence in Chicago Public Schools.