Graduates: Randi Gray Kristensen, Ph.D.

Visiting Assistant Professor at
George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Adjunct Faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute,
Carpinteria, CA

Dr. Kristensen on SisterMentors:

In my own situation, after graduation, a faculty member in my program noted that while I had the highest GRE scores they had ever seen, they had little confidence in my ability to finish. In such an atmosphere, the peermentoring that SisterMentors provides is often the essential component that tips the balance towards graduation rather than just walking away…
As important as these concrete steps towards dissertation completion are, it is the less tangible effect of being in dialogue with other women of color in this process which is perhaps the highest value of this program. Many of us are the only or one of the very few people of color in our respective programs…

The number of Ph.Ds that SisterMentors has produced in the three years of its existence rivals that of many large institutions, and many of us would testify that we would not be here if SisterMentors were not there… more

Bio

Dr. Randi Gray Kristensen received her doctorate in English in 2000 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her dissertation, "Rights of Passage: A Cross-Cultural Study of Maroon Novels by Black Women Writers," investigates the use and implications of the trope of marronage, the African-American practice of self-emancipation to forge alternative New World communities, in Toni Morrison's Beloved, Paule Marshall's The Chosen People, the Timeless Place, and Maryse Conde's Heremakhonon. She is currently revising her dissertation for publication.

Dr. Kristensen is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Writing Program at the George Washington University, and Adjunct Faculty in the Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She holds an M.F.A. in fiction, and is working on a mystery novel that links local and global colonization and resistance through its setting among the multiple communities of Washington D.C. Dr. Kristensen is also active in community organizations committed to linking art and activism, developing an activist agenda for mixed-race people, and empowering women and girls of the African Diaspora.