Additional Appointments
Affiliate Faculty, African Studies Program Affiliate Faculty, Banks Center for Educational Justice
Research Interests
Lakeya Afolalu
Lakeya Afolalu is an Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture. She specializes in the intersections of migration, language, literacy, race, and identity. Raised between her Nigerian and African American cultures, she embodies a hybrid identity reflected in her research focused on the languages, literacies, and identities of African immigrant and transnational youth.
Her current research explores how African immigrant and transnational youth form and negotiate their identities through their multilingual and literacy practices, including digital literacies, across home, school, and digital spaces. She particularly examines how racialization, gender, and colonial histories intersect and influence their identities and practices. Overarchingly, her scholarship emphasizes the diverse ethnoracial identities, languages, and literacies of Black youth while advancing theories of identity and transnationalism to promote sociopolitical change for all youth.
Lakeya's academic scholarship has appeared in journals such as Teachers College Record, the Journal of Literacy Research, and Research in the Teaching of English. It has also been supported by the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Educational Research Association. Her public scholarship has been featured in various publications, including TEDx, ESSENCE Magazine, and NPR Radio. A former literacy teacher, she actively continues to actively champion youth identities and well-being through community-engaged literacy and arts education partnerships.
Multimedia
- Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Fellowship (ECEOC), National Council of Teachers of English (2024 – 2026)
- Resilience and Compassion SEED Grant, University of Washington Resilience Lab and Campus Sustainability Fund (2024 - 2025)
- Scholars of Color Transitioning into Academic Research Institutions Fellow (STAR), Literacy Research Association (2022 – 2024)
- Outstanding Dissertation Award, Bilingual Education Research SIG, American Educational Research Association (2022)
- Cultivating New Voices among Scholars of Color Fellow (CNV), National Council of Teachers of English (2020 – 2022)
- Texas New Scholars Fellowship, Department of Teaching & Curriculum, The University of Texas at Austin (2016 – 2019)
(Formerly known as "Omogun". If you'd like to read a copy and/or need access, email me: lafolalu@uw.edu)
- Afolalu, L. (2024). More than My Race: Deconstructing Racial Identity Categories through Digital Literacies. Research in the Teaching of English, 59(2), 155-186.
- Afolalu, L. (2024). I'm Still Nigerian: Navigating Race Through Digital Literacies. Journal of Literacy Research, 56(3), 268-297.
- Afolalu, L. (2024). Opening Space to Participate: One Nigerian Girl’s Use of Visual Arts to Navigate School-Based Linguistic Discrimination. In Watson, VM., Knight-Manuel, M. & Smith, P. (Eds.), Educating African Immigrant Youth: Schooling & Civic Engagement in K-12 Schools, Teachers College Press.
- Omogun, L. & Skerrett, A. (2021). From Haiti to Detroit Through Black Immigrant Languages and Literacies. Journal of Literacy Research, 53(3), 406-429.
- Omogun, L. (2021). Counterstories: Reimagining Youth In Multiethnic Short Story Anthologies [Review of the Book Black Enough: Stories Of Being Young & Black in America edited by I. Zoboi]. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(5).
- Johnston, K., Omogun, L. & Lee, C. (2021). From New York City to the World: Examining Critical Global Literacies in an English Language Arts Classroom. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 35(2), 215-230.
- Skerrett, A. & Omogun, L. (2020) When Racial, Transnational, and Immigrant Identities Meet: Black Youth of Caribbean Origin Speak. Teachers College Record, 122(13).
- Omogun, L. (2018). Immigrant Student Identities In Literacy Spaces. Texas Education Review, 6(2), 70-81.
