Camille M. Wilson, Ph.D., is a University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor and Professor of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Policy at the University of Michigan. She explores the intersections of school-family-community engagement, educational improvement, and transformative leadership. Within this work, she highlights the educational advocacy, activism, and choices of marginalized families and communities of color. She also studies the practices of equity-driven school-based leaders. Dr. Wilson considers all these issues from critical, gendered, and racial justice perspectives. She is especially known for her scholarship that has advanced understanding and theories about African American mothers’ educational motherwork. 

In addition to publishing her scholarship extensively in national and international venues, Dr. Wilson’s work and commentary have been featured in prominent media outlets like the New York Times and Harper’s Bazaar. She has also been a guest lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa and a visiting professor at the University of the West Indies-Cave Hill in Barbados. Actively collaborating with youth, family, and community activists in national and regional educational improvement initiatives is also a vital aspect of her work.

Currently, Dr. Wilson and her research team are collaborating with community members to study how a Michigan community engaged, negotiated, adapted to, or resisted state policies to shutter their local schools. The team is also documenting how this community is now seeking to revitalize and protect their school system.

In 2020, Dr. Wilson founded the Community-Based Research on Equity, Activism, and Transformative Education (CREATE) Center at the University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education. The CREATE Center supports and networks equity-driven scholars and education advocates and activists who are committed to conducting and/or leveraging research that helps catalyze transformative public education in racially just ways. Dr. Wilson earned her doctorate in urban schooling in 2001 from UCLA.