Shatema Threadcraft is an African-American author and an Associate Professor at Dartmouth College. Starting as a biology major at Harvard, Threadcraft realized during college that she wanted to write about injustice in society. After considering a career in journalism, she turned toward research. She earned a Master's degree in philosophy, policy, and social value at the London School of Economics before heading to Yale to earn a Ph.D. in political science. Her most recent work has focused on the public and private divide in the deaths of Black individuals. This prompted Threadcraft to write a best-selling book titled, “Intimate Justice: The Black Female Body and the Body Politic” in 2016. This book uncovers the history of post-Roe v. Wade, after two black sisters were sterilized without their consent or their parent's knowledge. Despite Roe v. Wade's establishment of rights of women to control their reproductive organs, it did not protect the reproductive rights of Black women in practice. Threadcraft sheds light on the racial lines that take away Black women’s autonomy. Threadcraft’s career has focused on the intersection of race and gender, and she notes that the two must be studied together to provide any type of context. “It’s impossible to study race without studying gender, and gender without studying race, because they are, in our understanding, co-constitutive,” she says. “When we talk about gender, we are always talking about race because gender is racialized, and races are never without gender. We must study them together.” Threadcraft’s work in political science, philosophy, and gender and sexuality studies offers a different viewpoint on the history of African Americans' plight and how it correlates now. In January of 2021, Threadcraft joined Vanderbilt’s departments of Gender and Sexuality and Political Science in the College of Arts and Science as an associate professor.

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