Drawing strength from family roots stretching from Baltimore to Heidelberg, Vanessa Roberts (she | hers) is a community-based researcher, facilitator, and nonprofit leader in Denver, CO. Whether teaching at the collegiate level, facilitating a workshop, or working with her team, Vanessa’s interactions are interwoven with humor, personal stories, and an abiding love of social justice. The crux of her work is held together by a steady belief in the power of story and self-expression as tools for place-based community change. Since 2019 she has served as the Executive Director of Project VOYCE (Voices of Youth Creating Equity) but has been involved with the organization since 2016 in less formal ways.
Vanessa is also a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and her dissertation research aims to extend the sociological understanding of the intersecting roles youth, adults, and organizational dynamics play in reducing social inequality. Ms. Roberts received her Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College in 2008 where she designed her own Liberal Arts and Science major titled “Critical Race Theory: Emphasis Performance Comedy” and minored in American Cultural Studies. She went on to receive her Master of Arts in Performance Studies from the Tisch School of Art at New York University in 2009, where her focus was on racial and ethnic performativity in the wake of the African diaspora.
“TLC came highly recommended by several people I admire and hold in the highest regard, so I am overall thrilled to just be a part of this community. I really look forward to having dedicated space and time to focus on the type of leader I want to become, knowing what I do now about the nonprofit ecosystem, all while building connections with my peers in this work.“