Mara Johnson is a Black queer woman, southerner, daughter, sister, friend, educator, and doctoral student in Educational Studies at the University of Michigan. During her career teaching high school English, she was inspired by the coalitions students, families, educators, and community members formed to care for one another and counteract school violence. This ethic of community care guides Mara’s research, where she highlights Black queer girls’ agency, joy, and community-building as a counter-narrative to educational research that insists on spotlighting Black and queer youths’ suffering and siloing their joy and agency in the shadows. Her work centers Black queer girls’ school friendships as a homeplace and a blueprint for authentic care, and asks: What might it look like if schools were a friend to Black queer girls? Currently, Mara is the Graduate Student Research Assistant for the CREATE Center, where she works primarily on the School Shuttering and Equitable Educational Access Study.