Ms. Paula Menifee is a tenth-grade English educator with over ten years of experience in literacy instruction, curriculum design, and student development. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Master of Arts in Teaching (Secondary English Education) from American University and is currently a Doctor of Education (EdD) candidate at Johns Hopkins University.

Her research explores how Black secondary students experience literacy instruction through the intersecting lenses of a love ethic, trauma-informed practice, Abolitionist Teaching, and neurodiversity-affirming pedagogy. Using a mixed-methods approach, her research examines how structural oppression, educational technology, and classroom instructional practices interact to shape the literacy development, critical thinking, and academic engagement of Black secondary learners.

Ms. Menifee specializes in cultivating critical thinking, executive functioning, analytical writing, and reading comprehension for students in grades 3–12. Her work is particularly focused on designing rigorous, culturally affirming literacy experiences that support Black learners, including those with ADHD and other learning differences. She is committed to helping students develop the cognitive, analytical, and literacy skills necessary to thrive in an educational landscape increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and instant-access information.

Grounded in anti-racist and abolitionist educational principles, Ms. Menifee believes that all students, and Black learners in particular, deserve intellectually challenging, joyful, and affirming literacy instruction that empowers them to question, analyze, create, and transform the world around them.