Fayola Jacobs is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota in the urban planning area. Her academic work sits at the intersection of Black geographies, Black feminisms, radical planning, and environmental justice. She uses these frameworks to understand global Black communities’ experiences of their environments. Focusing on natural hazards and climate change, her research views disasters not merely as outcomes of systemic injustices but also as opportunities to imagine and build more just Black environmental futures.
Prior to her appointment in August 2019, she was a postdoctoral associate with the CREATE Initiative at the University of Minnesota. She completed her PhD in Urban and Regional Sciences at Texas A&M University, and earned her master’s degree in City and Regional Planning at UNC – Chapel Hill. Her graduate research focused on interrogating disaster mitigation plans and policies through a Black feminist lens. Before graduate school, she worked for a mental health agency, creating and facilitating anti-oppression workshops on migration, racism and mental health.