Kamaria B. Porter, PhD. is an Assistant Professor of Education Policy Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Porter received her doctorate in Higher Education from the University of Michigan. Kamaria’s research examines gender and racial inequities in higher education, particularly university response to sexual assault, graduate education, and faculty experiences. Her dissertation, Speaking into Silence: Intersections of Identity, Legality, and Black Women’s Decision to Report Sexual Assault on Campus examined Black women’s perspectives of the legal system in weighing whether to formally report sexual violence. Using her background as a counselor to survivors, Kamaria adapted her research design to include trauma informed practice. This study aims to understand how race, gender, and class influence Black women’s decision making around reporting sexual harm and propose protective measures to prevent sexual violence and support student recovery after sexual assault exposure.
Prior to graduate school, Dr. Porter worked as a community organizer in Chicago, focusing on expanding health care access and affordable housing. While earning her Masters in Higher Education at Loyola University Chicago, she trained to be a rape survivor crisis counselor, assisting survivors and their families in ERs as they navigated complex medical and legal decisions.
As part of the URSA Project, Dr. Porter trained and supervised nearly 100 undergraduate students coding sexual misconduct policies for adjudication procedures, consent definitions, and prohibited conduct definitions. Designing and overseeing data collection on several coding instruments, Kamaria has an in depth knowledge of how colleges and universities responded to sexual violence. In our project’s effort to educate our community amidst legal and political changes, Kamaria led several workshops about the proposed 2020 Title IX Regulations, educating students, faculty and staff about the changes to submit letters for the Notice and Comment period. Kamaria has also presented on the project at academic meetings on sexual and gender-based violence at University of Michigan, Stanford University, University of Kentucky, and Penn State University.
