Christina Cavener

Dr. Cavener is a social justice advocate whose passion is racial and gender justice. For over a decade, she has been organizing around the world. From the Congo to Chile, she has partnered with communities to form coalitions and mobilize toward equity. She strategized empowerment with orphans in the Congo and Rwanda, volunteered with a Youth Planned Parenthood in Zambia, and collaborated with Chilean women to educate their communities about gender justice. In North Texas, Dr. Cavener conducted listening sessions with over 300 religious congregations to foster collaboration for justice work. She was a community organizer for PICO, an organization that pushes for legislation to support racial and economic equality. She led youth and young adult civil rights bus tours on an annual basis for five years. For nine years, Dr. Cavener worked with African refugee students to establish mentoring, tutoring, and social-emotional wellbeing. She taught self-defense to Latina and Black girls in Tarrant County schools. She has been invited to give multiple talks about racial and gender justice to nonprofits, schools, and churches. Dr. Cavener also served as a Diversity and Inclusion consultant at Girls Inc. of Tarrant County. These experiences instilled a passion to take an intersectional approach to disrupting systems of oppression. Her research agenda and teaching are rooted in this advocacy work.