Our Team
The Student Voices of Injustice team is a diverse group of individuals, brought together by their acute focus on equity and a common desire to see positive change proliferate across UVA Grounds. They’re curious researchers, advocates for justice, and lifelong learners.
Each one has made a commitment to listening to and elevating the voices of students who have experienced injustices on UVA Grounds.
Current Members
Yoi Tibbetts, Ph.D., is the Research Director at the Motivate Lab and an assistant professor at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. He researches motivation and achievement with a focus on supporting students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds excel in higher education. As part of his work to address issues related to inequity in education, Dr. Tibbetts has a distinct concentration on how we can leverage motivation science to change systems of higher education to be more motivationally supportive, particularly for historically disenfranchised students. He earned his Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2017 and his B.A. from Swarthmore College in 2009.
Yoi Tibbetts
Sela Carrington is a 4th year majoring in Public Policy and Leadership in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. She is passionate about uplifting the voices of those that aren’t traditionally heard or accepted in the UVA community. Outside of SVOI Carrington serves as the President of the Black Student Leaders in Policy, and a Senior Peer Advisor for the Office of African American Affairs where she mentors incoming black students on how to best succeed at UVA. After graduation Carrington wants to go on to law school and become a judge to begin to eliminate the sentencing discrimination that occurs between young black and brown males and the prison system. She believes our work will motivate others from marginalized backgrounds to take a stand and use their voices against injustice.
Sela Carrington
Karly Ball is a Master of Public Policy student at UVA. She is originally from Pipestem, West Virginia and graduated from Wake Forest University in 2018. Karly is interested in how higher education policies impact students with marginalized identities, especially for students with disabilities. She’s committed to forming a more equitable higher education landscape centered on belonging, diversity, and inclusion. In her free time, Karly enjoys baking, learning about wine, and spending time with her dog, Bea.
Karly Ball
Sasha served as a special education teacher at a public school in Brooklyn, NY, before joining the Motivate Lab team. Sasha’s teaching career began through her affiliation with Teach for America, in which she devoted five years fighting educational inequity and opportunity gaps in the Public-School System. She cares about increasing students’ belonging by listening and learning from student voices, especially students from marginalized groups, as they often go unheard. She believes that one crucial step in advancing educational equity is by magnifying the voices of marginalized students.
Sasha Miller-Marshall
Josh is a member of Motivate Lab and recent graduate of UVA (CLAS ‘20). He is passionate about finding the intersections between education, psychology, and neuroscience. Josh is part of the SVoI team because he wants to do what he can to learn, listen, and strive to be an ally for the fight for social justice. Marginalized voices need to be heard. Black Lives Matter.
Josh Davis
Etomgi served as a teacher in Washington D.C. before becoming a graduate student in the School of Education. Her experiences, as an early childhood teacher and parent, crystallized her interest in the relationship between educational inequities and health and wellness outcomes. Consequently, she aims to conduct applied research regarding the intergenerational transmission of resilience and vulnerabilities, especially as it relates to BIPOC. SVoI is engaged in research to generate insights that can be actualized. Etomgi's involvement in this initiative aligns with her objective to contribute to increasing educational equity and thereby improving health and wellness outcomes for marginalized students.
Etomgi Okezie
Hadassah Muthoka is a research consultant at the Motivate Lab and a recent graduate of UVA (CLAS’ 20). She is particularly passionate about attaining equitable rights, justice and opportunities for marginalized communities both in the United States and abroad. Her areas of interests include, social justice, academic, economic and racial equality, liberation theology, international and domestic human rights, and law. Through this work, she hopes to see black students, faculty, and staff at UVA, as well as all marginalized groups, have the opportunity to succeed as highly as their white, or non-marginalized peers. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2020, with a B.A. in Politics with a concentration in Foreign Affairs, and a minor in Spanish. Her goal is to become a human rights attorney.
Hadassah Muthoka
Donovan Rolle is a fourth-year in the Batten School of Public Policy and Leadership. He is passionate about being the change he wants to see in his community. As a former student athlete, Rolle is using his newfound time to be more involved in organizations like SVOI, Black Student Leaders in Policy, and other initiatives around grounds. He hopes this work encourages changes and enhances the culture at UVA.
Donovan Rolle
Contributors
Alison Lubin, Lab Manager, Motivate Lab
Amanda Vite, University of Southern California, PhD Student- Educational Psychology
Seth Moya, Former Research Coordinator, Motivate Lab