Kali Gross is Professor of African American Studies at Wesleyan University. Her research concentrates on black women’s experiences in the United States criminal justice system between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
She is author of the award-winning book,Colored Amazons:Crime, Violence and Black Women in the City of Brotherly Love 1880-1910, and the acclaimed Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex and Violence in America. Dr. Gross's writing frequently explores how historical legacies of race, gender, and justice shape mass incarceration today. Her short essays and opinion pieces have been featured in BBC News, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Root, Warscapes, Ebony, Truthout, New Black Man (In Exile), the American Prospect and Jet.
Dr. Gross has taught a range of students from those in housing projects in New York City to prisoners at the State Correctional Institution-SCI Muncy to students at colleges and universities across the country.
She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants including a Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Lindback Research Grant, and two residencies at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Dr. Gross received her B.A. from Cornell University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.