Shayla R. Griffin received her PhD and MSW from the joint program in Social Work and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor and her bachelor's degree from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work focuses on issues of race and class in K-12 schools. Griffin has extensive experience in dialogue facilitation, diversity training, and social justice education. She has worked with high school students, college students, and hundreds of K-12 teachers around issues of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. In addition, she consults with a number of nonprofit organizations on issues of social justice. Griffin has taught courses on race, social justice, and diversity at the University of Michigan for the Program on Intergroup Relations, the School of Social Work, and the Department of Anthropology. She has been the recipient of a number of research grants, including the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Andrew W. Woodrow Mellon Graduate Fellowship in Humanities. From 2012-2014, she was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context at the University of Michigan. Currently, she is the Diversity and School Culture Consultant for the Washtenaw Intermediate School District (Michigan) and director of Creating Culturally Proficient Communities, a five-year initiative to improve racial and economic justice in Ypsilanti Community Schools (Michigan). She resides in Detroit.