Shani Adia Evans is a sociologist and qualitative researcher. She teach courses on race and racism, space & place, education, intersectionality, culture, and qualitative research methods. She is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rice University.

Shani’s first book, We Belong Here: Gentrification, White Spacemaking, and a Black Sense of Place shows how long-term residents of a recently gentrified, historically Black neighborhood in Portland, Oregon respond to the changing meanings of space, while continuing to engage in Black placemaking.

Her work also examines educational inequality and she has authored and co-authored several articles about school choice and selective public school admissions, including “I Wanted Diversity, But Not So Much: Middle Class White Parents, School Choice, and the Persistence of Anti-Black Stereotypes.”

Shani’s research has been supported by the Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship Program.

Dr. Evans earned a Ph.D. in sociology and education at the University of Pennsylvania, a M.S.Ed. in education policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in anthropology at Amherst College.

Before doctoral study, she worked at Research for Action. She also spent several years working with young people in schools and community organizations. She was a community health Peace Corps volunteer in Omboue, Gabon