UMass Boston

Race, Identity, Intersectionality, LGBTQIA2+ Studies, Child Welfare, Family Sociology, Qualitative Research Methods, Indigenous Studies, De-colonized Pedagogy, Indigenous Research Methods, Political Sociology, Social Movements, and Emancipatory Education

ABD, Brandeis University

MA, Brandeis University

• Margot Trotter Davis, Marji Erickson Warfield, Janet Boguslaw, Dakota Roundtree-Swain & Gretchen Kellogg (2020). Parenting a 6-Year Old Is Not What I Planned in Retirement: Trauma and Stress among Grandparents Due to the Opioid Crisis, Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 63:4, 295-315.

• Roundtree-Swain, D., & Križ K. (2017). "We are merchandise on a conveyor belt”: How young adults in the public child protection system perceive their participation in decisions about their care. Children and Youth Services Review, 78, 32-40.

View Professor Roudtree-Swain's Curriculum Vitae

Dakota Roundtree-Swain (they/them) is from Brockton, MA. Deeply rooted in justice and equity, Dakota is dedicated to making sure that DEI is first, not virtue-signaling as a means of meeting the times, but entrenched in every single part of program development, implementation, evaluation, and institutional culture and climate. And secondly, with both DEI and their praxis more broadly, Dakota has proven through their entire professional life and research that they will not do any work that impacts historically oppressed populations without putting people from those communities at the forefront of those conversations in a participatory action framework.

From running the community outreach strategies and field strategy for Rachael Rollins in 2018 and then managing an entire congressional campaign, to teaching about complex issues of race, class, and gender with relevant materials to wide audiences with differing levels of knowledge and political leanings, Dakota believes that education can be emancipatory and provide a clarity that creates social consciousness. 

Dakota graduated with their B.A. from Emmanuel College in 2016 with a double major in English and Sociology (with a concentration in Human Services) and a minor in Gender Studies; they received their Masters of Social Policy from Brandeis University in 2020. They completed their Ph.D. (ABD) in Social Policy at the Heller School at Brandeis University with a concentration in children, youth, and families in 2021. Their work involves racial disproportionality in foster care, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and systems change more broadly.