Dr. Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead is a scholar, educator, author, filmmaker, broadcaster, and social justice advocate whose work connects academic scholarship with community engagement and public conversation.

She is a professor of Communication and African and African American Studies at Loyola University Maryland and the founding executive director of The Karson Institute for Race, Peace & Social Justice. Established at Loyola, the Karson Institute provides a space for scholars, students, activists, educators, and community members to examine issues of racial inequality, injustice, peace, and social change.

Dr. Whitehead’s career has crossed multiple disciplines and platforms. Before her work in academia, she worked in filmmaking with MetroTV, a PBS affiliate, and as a senior producer for Music Television Networks (MTV). She directed and produced Twin Towers: A History, a documentary that received a New York Emmy nomination.

As an educator, Dr. Whitehead has worked as a Baltimore City middle school teacher, a K–12 master teacher in African American history, and a curriculum and lesson-plan developer. She has trained thousands of educators in culturally responsive teaching and has dedicated much of her career to helping students and teachers understand history through a deeper examination of race, culture, and identity.

Her work as an author and scholar includes Notes from a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis, Letters to My Black Sons: Raising Boys in a Post-Racial America, and RaceBrave: New and Selected Works.

Dr. Whitehead is also the award-winning host of Today with Dr. Kaye on WEAA 88.9 FM, where she brings together news, history, culture, politics, and community conversations. Through radio and public commentary, she continues her commitment to making complex issues accessible and encouraging audiences to engage with the questions shaping American life.

Across every part of her career, Dr. Whitehead’s work reflects a commitment to connecting scholarship with action and using education, storytelling, and dialogue as tools for social change.