Shaunté Yvette Hill

Shaunté Yvette Hill (she/her), an Oakland native, is a doctoral student in the School of Education & Counseling Psychology, Social Justice Leadership program at Santa Clara University. A dedicated advocate for equity in PK-16 education, she holds a BS in Applied Arts and Sciences from RIT and an MA in Educational Leadership from Santa Clara University. As a proud Black mother of a teenage daughter, her life’s work is rooted in disrupting structural barriers that limit Black brilliance.

Her research pioneers the concept of undering®, a term she coined to expose the systemic mechanisms—rooted in white supremacy—that actively work to invalidate, underpay, undervalue, underrepresent, and underposition Black Women. Undering® is more than a description; it is a framework that demands action. Through her work, Shaunté challenges institutions to acknowledge, dismantle, and rebuild systems that uplift rather than oppress.

Grounded in an Afrofuturist sankofa praxis, her research advances a liberatory curriculum that [re]claims joy, reimagines learning spaces, and centers Black Women’s lived experiences as sources of knowledge and power. She brings this vision to life as a curriculum developer for the California Black Studies Curriculum (CABSC) project at UC Berkeley’s Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO). Shaunté’s mission is clear: to ensure the next generation of Black scholars, leaders, and creators inherit a world that recognizes, values, and celebrates their full humanity.