Pilar Jefferson

Pilar Jefferson (she/they) is a Black Queer educator and scholar whose work focuses on art and exhibitions at the intersection of African diasporic communities and Indigenous peoples of the Americas. She received her BA in Art History and Native American Studies from Vassar College in 2015, and her MA in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley in 2022. Pilar is an experienced museum educator and has worked at institutions including the Museum of the City of New York and the Studio Museum in Harlem. She is currently finishing her PhD in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, examining the history and legacies of Afro-Indigenous representation in US museums. Her work focuses on arts and culture institutions that work with Black and Indigenous communities in the Dawnland, the Native territories that stretches from current day Maine to Long Island. In addition to her position as the Thurgood Marshall Dissertation Fellow, Pilar is also the recipient of the AAUW American Dissertation Fellowship and the Viet Thanh Nguyen Graduate Fellowship.