Class of 2020

Dr. Shayda Kafai, a light, brown-skinned femme with straight hair that ends above her shoulders smiles widely into the camera. She is wearing bright magenta lipstick and rose quartz earrings. She is wearing a plain, dark grey shirt and is sitting in front of a wooden fence.

Shayda Kafai

Educator-Scholar-Writer

“Mentoring is a reciprocal, generative, and tender process of healing and growth; mentoring’s connectivity is one of the most powerful ways we can disrupt systems of oppression and their mandates of isolation. “

We are proud to induct Shayda Kafai into the Susan Daniels Disability Mentoring Hall of Fame.

Shayda Kafai (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies in the Ethnic and Women’s Studies department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. As a queer, disabled, Mad, femme of color, she commits to enacting the many ways we can reclaim our bodyminds from intersecting systems of oppression. To support this work as an educator-scholar, Shayda applies Disability Justice and collective care practices in the spaces she cultivates. As a scholar, her writing focuses on intersectional body politics and the resilience strategies of disabled, queer of color art-activism. She lives in Pomona, California with her wife, Amy.