Meet Our Team
The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis (CBP) is directed by Prof. SA Smythe and sustained by a rotating cohort of graduate research fellows, artists-in-residence, and community collaborators. Together, we form an interdisciplinary community rooted in black study, creative research, and collective care.
Dr. SA Smythe
CBP Director | Associate Professor of Black Studies & the Archive
they / iel / lui
Prof. SA Smythe is a critical theorist, composer–librettist, transmedia storyteller, and educator. They are Associate Professor of Black Studies & the Archive and a 2026/27 Jackman Faculty Fellow at UofT, completing their project, “Black Trans Life and the Anarchival Ghost Print.” Smythe serves on international juries and editorial or advisory boards dedicated to Black arts, culture, and politics; trans, disabled, and migrant justice; and independent publishing. They are editor of Troubling the Grounds: Global Configurations of Blackness, Nativism & Indigeneity (vols. 1 & 2) and Transnational Black Studies and author of the forthcoming monograph, Where Blackness Meets the Sea: On Crisis, Culture & the Black Mediterranean, and a book-length choreo-poem accompanying a nine-part sound-performance suite, proclivity. Shortlisted for the 2025 Creative Capital Award in Socially Engaged Multimedia Performance, Smythe received the 2021–22 Rome Prize and fellowships in multimedia installation, composition, and interdisciplinary arts residencies including MacDowell and Banff (Leighton Studios). Their sound, film score, and performance work has been presented internationally, including flagship performances at the Power Plant in 2023, Toronto’s 2024 Biennial and the Vector Festival in 2025; Mattatoio Museum (Rome), Africa Writes Literary Festival (UK), Kampnagel, and transmediale (Berlin).
Faculty Advisory Fellow
Uahikea Maile
Faculty Advisory Fellow, Black-Indigenous Politics & Transcultural Strategy
he / they / ‘o ia
Prof. Uahikea Maile is a Kānaka Maoli scholar, organizer, and practitioner from Maunawili, Oʻahu. He is assistant professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Maile’s research interests include: history, law, and activism on Hawaiian sovereignty; Indigenous critical theory; settler colonialism; political economy; feminist and queer theories; and decolonization. In Gifts of Sovereignty: Capitalism, Settler Colonialism, and Indigenous Politics in Hawaiʻi (forthcoming, Duke University Press), Maile examines the historical development and contemporary formation of settler colonial capitalism in Hawai’i and gifts of sovereignty that seek to overturn it by issuing responsibilities for balancing relationships with ‘āina, the land and that who feeds. He was Founding Director of Ziibiing Lab at UofT, which continues to be one of our Collaboratory’s kindred-guides. He brings his generosity of spirit and deep transcultural relations as our consulting fellow and research collaborator on upcoming programs in anticarceral, anti-imperialist, and community-centred initiatives organized with and around Black and Indigenous relations and political-aesthetic convergences at sea and otherwise.
Research Fellows (2025-26)
Dana Murray
Research Fellow, Steward, and Lab Manager
she / her
Dana Murray is a museum registrar and PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Information studying ecological disasters, care, and cultural heritage in Puerto Rico and Hawai’i. Her research examines the effects of extreme weather events on gallery, library, archive, and museum (GLAM) and cultural heritage workers as they seek to navigate between professional duties and personal obligations, as well as the emergent practices that stem from this tension. Dana brings her experience, political commitments, and research interests to the CBP as a student co-investigator of the flagship research project on Black Aesthetics & Transformative Stewardship (BATS) funded project, which includes Writing in Common, a student-led writing support group, and the CBP creative-critical workshop series Kin//Making: Creative Tools for Community as Praxis.
Dina Blanco Pena
Master’s Research Fellow in Cultural Memory & Heritage
she / her
Dina Blanco Pena is a multidisciplinary public historian committed to celebrating the diverse histories of Canada’s marginalized communities. A first-generation Japanese–Dominican Canadian raised in downtown Toronto, she developed an early passion for the city’s underrecognized histories. Dina recently contributed to York University’s Heritage Singers Project, a multimedia hybrid exhibition honoring the legacy of Caribbean folk music in Toronto. She is pursuing her Master’s in Museum Studies at UofT and serves as Co-President of the Museum Professionals of Colour student association. As MPOC student liaison and CBP research fellow, Dina co-leads the global Black cinema series Night Visions and the CBP’s research initiative Freedom Library for Otherwise Worldmaking, continuing her commitment to community-building and public-facing historical practices.
Isabella Joao
Master’s Research Fellow in Cultural Stewardship & Accessible User Experience
she / her
Isabella Joao is a second-year Master of Information student at the University of Toronto, specializing in User Experience Design. She identifies as a Black woman of Jamaican and Portuguese descent. Her work intersects UX research and digital archives, emphasizing accessibility, ethical research, and community-centred digital practices. She has conducted research on Digital Misogynoir: Navigating Racism and Sexism in Online Spaces, examining algorithmic bias and anti-Black misogynoir across social media platforms. Isabella is also the creator of the digital exhibition Echoes of Liberation: The Untold Stories of Black Resistance in Canada, which highlights Black-Canadian activism through archival and multimedia storytelling. As a CBP fellow, Isabella is interested in user-centred web design, technical workshops, and research that sustains Black intellectual and community life.
Ingrid Jones
Curatorial Research Fellow, Special Projects
she / her
Through collaborative projects and decolonial methodologies, Toronto-based curator and creative director Ingrid Jones interrogates the systemic erasure, commodification, and invisible labour of Black and racialized people within institutions. She has curated exhibitions, projects, and programs for the Doris McCarthy Gallery, SAVVY Contemporary, and the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Ingrid has also designed masterclasses on photographic best practices for Sheridan Institute and lectured at Toronto Metropolitan University on design for innovation and activism. Her work has been featured in Computer Arts Projects (UK), Vice Berlin, Photografie, Waddington’s, and Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education. Ingrid is advancing her PhD in Art History at the University of Toronto.
Andreann (Drea) Asibey
Curator of Programs & Research Engagement
she / her
Andreann Asibey (Drea) is a Ghanaian-British-Canadian curator, cultural producer, and educator known for her people-centered practice. Her work bridges community engagement, public programming, and cultural production, grounded in her three guiding principles: community, culture, and conversation. Drea’s practice reflects a deep commitment to amplifying systematically marginalized voices and fostering spaces where pluralistic stories and perspectives are recognized and can thrive. She has curated and produced a wide range of multidisciplinary projects, from immersive events like Para Juntar at The Africa Centre and Building Our Collective Futures at Wellcome Collection, to A Journey Through Otherworld at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, which was awarded Best Public Program 2025 by Ontario Galleries. Drea is the founder of Studio Kilombo, and at CBP, she leads The Black Field, a GLAM site visit and professional development series, and supports curatorial research in anticipation of the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art.
Artists-in-Residence
Kay Ulanday Barrett
CBP Disability Justice Fellow & Artist-in-Residence
they / he / Siya
A 2024 Disabled Futures Fellow awarded by The Ford Foundation and United States Artists, Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, and A+ napper. They are the winner of the 2022 Cy Twombly Award for Poetry by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. They have been awarded residencies from Tin House, James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell, Millay Arts, and Baldwin for the Arts Fellowship. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and was a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They have featured at The United Nations, MoMA, The Lincoln Center, Sesame Street, the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and more. Their contributions appear in The New York Times, Academy of American Poets, The Literary Hub, Poetry Unbound, The Advocate, NYLON, them., and Al Jazeera, among others. At CBP, they curate No Body But Ours: a virtual showcase created by and for the sick and sovereign, which gathers Black Queer, Trans, and other non-Black and Indigenous QTIPOC/2S+ disabled artists and audiences.
Research Assistants & Collaborators
CBP is also sustained by research assistants, collaborating members, and community advisors who bring their expertise to specific projects and programming. Current and recent collaborators include:
Gigi Wong (she / her) — 2026 FOI–CBP Research Assistant; research grants and No Body But Ours series
Moska Rokay (she / her) — Doctoral Fellow in Archival Practice, Migration & Memory Work; COMPAC lead
Said Yassin — CBP Community Advisor & Cultural Strategist; Songwriter's Symposium
Kadhja Bonet — 2026 Artist-in-Residence in Black Sound & Community Infrastructures; Songwriter's Symposium
Sheba Wiafe (she / her) — Collaborating Member in Political Thought & Community Study
Christelle — Collaborating Member in Black Feminist Politics & Policy
Alumns / Former Fellows
The following scholars, artists, and cultural workers have contributed to CBP as fellows, collaborators, and resident thinkers. We honour their contributions and the communities they continue to build.
Melissa Vincent
2023–24 Research Fellow & Sonic (n)etnographer
she / her
Melissa Vincent is a music journalist, researcher, and strategist based in Toronto whose work broadly explores equity, intimacy, and community formation as it relates to music, technology, and culture. She is a Master of Information candidate at the Faculty of Information. Her work has been featured in Pitchfork, Elle Canada, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Business, Billboard, NPR Music, and The Fader among others. In 2022, she was nominated for a National Magazine Award in the category of Best Science and Technology Storytelling for her investigative essay, Ethical AI has Not Solved Tech’s Problem with Racism. She is a frequent on-air music correspondent for The National (CBC), a Prism Prize juror, SOCAN Songwriting Prize Panelist, member of Toronto’s Music Advisory Committee, and Polaris Prize jury foreperson and board member.
Anu Makinde
2023–24 Research Fellow & Folk-Literature (n)etnographer
she / her
Anu Makinde is completing her MA in Geography at UofT, writing a thesis dedicated to her ancestors whose lives revolve around the phonetic language, Yoruba. Her thesis uses geography to ask how Afrobeats winds up on the shores of “Lake Ontario,” unearthing how taken-for-granted assumptions about Black placemaking parallel definitions like genre or nation. She has previously worked as a Project Assistant for Library of Infinities, a digital space that garners community and connection around Black and Afro-diasporic literature, music and art. Her work, Variegated Wood, was awarded the Gallery 44 x Toronto Image Works Award under the Nia Centre’s OUTREACH program.
Alexa Fairclough
2023–24 Research Fellow & Memory (n)etnographer
she / her
Alexa Fairclough is a Caribbean-Canadian BA Anthropology candidate, artist, and writer at the University of Toronto. She is a steward of Black Canadian History within the Ontario Heritage Trust and a producer of multimedia works that draw from the rich history, geography, and politics of the Black Atlantic. Her research interests include race, gender, education, memory, art, and culture. Her next work, Globalization and Media: The Making of the Cosmopolitan West Indian Woman, is a visual exploration of the burgeoning gender roles impressed upon West Indian women in the landscape of the 1960s–1970s.