Black Brilliance: The Joy and Power of Scholarship as Resistance

Misha Inniss-Thompson, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Cornell University Department of Psychology

     Dr. Misha Inniss-Thompson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. Dr. Inniss-Thompson received her doctorate in Community Research and Action at Vanderbilt University. During her doctoral training, Dr. Inniss-Thompson worked alongside Black girls to co-create the Black Girl Magic Crew, an afterschool program in Nashville, TN focused on Black girls’ mental health, literacy & arts, college & career prep, and identity development. She is an alumnus of Cornell's Department of Human Development. During her undergraduate career, she was a Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Scholar. 

     Dr. Inniss-Thompson is the co-organizer of "Collectively Envisioning Black Girl Futures," a collective of Black women scholars and community members in and beyond Central New York. The Working Group's aims are to: (1) reflect on our Black girlhoods; (2) envision Black girl futures through the arts; and (3) host readers’ workshops centered on Black women writers to shape Black girl community work.

Research Interests

     Dr. Inniss-Thompson’s research examines the impact of families, communities, and schools in shaping Black girls’ mental health and wellness using a cultural-assets perspective. Dr. Inniss-Thompson is passionate about centering youth voices in the research process through methodological approaches such as photovoice and youth participatory action research.

     Her program of research investigates three primary questions:

1. What protective processes buffer the impact of racial discrimination on Black girls’ mental health and wellness?

2. How do social contexts shape Black adolescent girls’ mental health and wellness during the transition from middle childhood through adolescence

3. What can be gained by creating epistemological and physical spaces and places that support Black girls’ development?

Karl Lewis, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Cornell University Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering

     Dr. Karl Lewis joined the Meinig School as an assistant professor in July 2020. Dr. Lewis comes to Cornell most recently from Indiana University School of Medicine, where he worked on two projects with Dr. Alex Robling as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. Dr. Lewis’s work seeks to understand how the acute sensing mechanisms in musculoskeletal cells relate to tissue-level changes in healthy and disease states. To interrogate these questions, Dr. Lewis works with cutting-edge intravital imaging techniques to observe cell signaling in real time. Using genetically modified mice, he and his collaborators are searching for proteins related to bone growth, development, and disease (i.e. osteoporosis).

     The Lewis lab advances bone mechanotransduction research and develop intravital imaging methods for other musculoskeletal tissues. They probe how acute cell sensing relates to tissue-level changes in health and disease, aiming to identify new therapeutic targets. Focus areas include real-time analysis of how bone cells respond to mechanical loads and investigating bone interactions with adjacent tissues in osteoarthritis and osteoporosis progression.

Research Interests

     Dr. Lewis’s research interests center on understanding the interplay of mechanical cues and biological changes in musculoskeletal tissues. As a trained engineer, Dr. Lewis views the body as a system of sub-systems with a wide range of input and output signals. Cytokines, neurotransmitters, and hormones are some of the signals available for the body to use. Mechanical forces can modulate these signals and are critical for the health of musculoskeletal cells.