Africana Studies / Rites and Reason Theatre

Sophia Evangeline Gumbs is a first-year doctoral student in Africana Studies at Brown University. Her research interests span the 19th century to the contemporary period and include traditional midwifery practices, social movement histories, transnational Black Feminist theory and practice, and the praxes of contemporary Black women and femmes doing care and justice work around childbirth. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude from the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Sophia is a community-based birth doula and a member of Sista Fire RI and the Doulas of Color Network. She grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and has lived and worked in Providence, RI since 2022.