To celebrate Black History Month in 2022, we featured PDS Black Alumni whose work / scholarship / innovation / entrepreneurship contributes to their community and how their contribution enhances the visibility of people of color in their workspace. Email your bio and photo to pdsblackalumni@gmail.com to be a part of our next feature!
Dr. Charlotte E. Jacobs
Charlotte E. Jacobs, as the director for the Independent School Teaching Residency program (ISTR), leads the design and execution of a residency-based teacher education program that involves close partnership with over 20 schools. Dr. Jacobs also teaches a course on adolescent development in the Urban Teaching Residency program at Penn GSE.
Dr. Jacobs earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Spanish Literature & Language from Columbia University and a master’s degree in Education focusing on middle school humanities from Lesley University and the Shady Hill Teacher Training Course located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Jacobs taught seventh grade humanities at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Chicago, Illinois, and was a faculty member of the NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Conference before matriculating to the University of Pennsylvania to earn a Ph.D. in Teaching, Learning, and Teacher education.
Dr. Jacobs’ research interests focus on issues of identity development and gender in education concerning adolescent girls of color, teacher education and equity in schools, and youth participatory action research. Dr. Jacobs is the co-author of Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls (Stylus), and co-author of Teaching Girls: How Teachers and Parents Can Reach Their Brains and Hearts (Rowman & Littlefield) with retired Penn GSE professor Dr. Peter Kuriloff and Penn GSE alum Dr. Shannon Andrus. The book focuses on how schools can support the development and educational needs of girls by adopting a gender conscious perspective. Dr. Jacobs has also co-authored and solo-authored journal articles that focus on the development of adolescent girls of color at the intersection of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Dr. Jacobs’ current research projects involve understanding the experiences of students with marginalized identities in independent schools as well as systems-level analyses of how schools are engaging in anti-racism work.
In addition to her role with the Independent School Teaching Residency program, Dr. Jacobs consults with schools about diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice issues through the EnGenderED Research Collaborative, a research organization that she co-founded with Dr. Katie Clonan-Roy, a Penn GSE alum. Dr. Jacobs also serves as a board member of Christina Seix Academy, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, and the Girls Justice League, a non-profit organization supporting the social, educational, and economic rights of girls in Philadelphia.
Lauren Rainey ‘00
New Jersey Deputy Attorney General Lauren J. Rainey serves on mobility assignment to the Department of Law and Public Safety’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, where she conducts training and assists with implementing strategic diversity and inclusion initiatives throughout the Department. DAG Rainey previously served in the Division of Criminal Justice’s Prosecutors Supervision & Training Bureau, where she led specialized training and CLEAR initiatives and conducted community outreach on behalf of DCJ and the Office of the Attorney General. She also served as the DCJ Liaison to the Supreme Court Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, the Domestic Violence Working Group, the Domestic Violence Fatality/ Near Fatality Review Board, the Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Symposium, the County Sex Crimes Assistant Prosecutor’s Group, the Human Trafficking Task Force, the Clergy Abuse Task Force, and to Community Outreach Liaisons.
Prior to joining the Division of Criminal Justice, DAG Rainey was a trial attorney and litigated some of Philadelphia’s most complex and complicated sexual assault and domestic violence cases as an Assistant District Attorney in the Family Violence & Sexual Assault Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. DAG Rainey has also served as the City of Trenton’s Director of Policy and Communications and as a lobbying and public relations associate at Porzio Governmental Affairs in Trenton. She has extensive experience in community outreach and relations, public affairs, politics and public policy. DAG Rainey earned a J.D. from Rutgers School of Law-Camden, a master’s degree in Social and Community Services from Capella University, and a bachelor’s of arts degree with dual majors in English and Women’s and Gender Studies with an emphasis in African-American studies from the College of New Jersey.
DAG Lauren J. Rainey is the Vice President of Training & Education for the Black Prosecutors Association of New Jersey, is a member of the Association of Black Women Lawyers, Garden State Bar Association, the New Jersey State Bar Association, Mercer County Bar Association, and Barristers of Philadelphia. She is a Minister, and dedicated public servant. She resides in Mercer County, NJ with her husband and their three children.
Karen Turner ‘72
“My active presence on campus as one of just a handful of tenured Black female faculty members means I have been visible.” – Karen Turner
Now in her 30th year at Temple University, Karen Turner is a former department chair, past president of the Faculty Senate and currently serves as director of Temple University’s Academic Center on Research in Diversity (ACCORD). Over the years, Karen has been a role model and confidant to students and colleagues alike.
A 2021 recipient of Temple’s highest teaching recognition, The Great Teacher Award, Karen believes that teaching is a calling, not a job. Her research interests include the integration of new media technologies in race studies and journalism pedagogy; and diversity issues in media and the Academy. She has also been published on topics including facilitating difficult conversations, an online Race and Racism in the News course offered since 1997, and a mobile media election crowdsourcing project she co-created in 2004. Karen has worked with students covering state primaries and the national political conventions of both Democrats and Republicans, has three-times led the award-winning international reporting program to Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, and also teaches broadcast journalism and sports-related courses.
Karen is a past recipient of the Provost’s Outstanding Faculty Service Award, the Lindback Foundation Distinguished Teaching award and the Klein College Innovative Teaching award. In 2016, she was appointed a Teaching Faculty Fellow in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. A member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Standing Committee on Teaching, she wrote the first chapter of a Master Class that explores best teaching practices.
Before joining Temple, Karen worked at the American Bar Association as a Staff Director, as a reporter at WCTC-AM in New Brunswick, then as News and Public Affairs Director for the morning team of a startup, urban-formatted station WIZF-FM, known as “The WIZ” in Cincinnati. She was the City Hall reporter for Philadelphia’s WPEN-AM until she decided to try something new and went to work for then Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell as his first press secretary. While working for the City, Karen realized that she missed being a journalist. When an opportunity presented itself, she made the transition to the Academy to help educate the next generation of journalists.
In addition to graduating from Dartmouth College in the first class of women to matriculate as freshmen, Karen holds degrees from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.