Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis

Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, PhD, is a professor emerita at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She earned her doctorate in linguistics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and specializes in sociolinguistics, gender and language use, and language and education. She is the author of numerous scholarly publications including two books: My Soul Is My Own: Oral Narratives of African American Women in the Professions (Routledge, 1993), and Unrelated Kin: Race and Gender in Women’s Personal Narratives (Routledge, 1996). In 2006, she also coauthored Lights of the Spirit: Historical Portraits of Black Bahá’ís in North America, 1989–2000 with Richard Thomas. Her grants and awards include a Fulbright Research Fellowship at the University of Zambia’s Institute for African Studies, a Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Dr. Etter-Lewis focused her research on Black women’s oral narratives and preservation of their life stories. She has conducted research projects in Ghana, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Lesotho. She is the cofounder of Miami University Dream Keepers, a college readiness program for underserved youth in the greater Cincinnati area.