Dr. Karida L. Brown is a sociologist, educator, and writer. She currently serves on the advisory boards of The Obama Presidency Oral History Project, the Du Boisian Scholar Network, and the Eastern Kentucky African American Migration Project. She is a Fulbright Scholar, and her work has been supported by national foundations such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Hellman Fellows Fund. She was the Director of Racial Equity and Action for the 2020 Lakers.

She is the author of two books, Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia (UNC Press, 2018) and The Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line (co-authored with José Itzigsohn, NYU Press, 2020). In addition, her research is published in various peer-reviewed academic journals such as the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Southern Cultures, and The Du Bois Review.

Dr. Brown is a Professor at UCLA in the Departments of Sociology and African American Studies, and Associate Director of the Bunche Center for African American Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University in 2016, and a M.P.A. in Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011.