Dr. Sheriden Booker is a cultural strategist and artist with deep roots in storytelling and education, passed down from generations of women along the Mississippi River. She was initiated into the Orisha tradition 18 years ago, under Baba William Lowman and Iya Penelope Stubbs in Brooklyn, and later into Egbe and Ogboni by Chief Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi in Osogbo, Nigeria.

Dr. Booker started her career in film and TV production at Walt Disney Studios as part of the Emma L. Bowen Foundation for Minorities in Media. It was during this time she realized Hollywood lacked diverse and nuanced Black stories, especially those that highlighted African cultural contributions in the Americas. This inspired her to pursue a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology and African American Studies from Yale.

An advocate for African Diasporic faith communities, she graduated from the Interfaith Center of New York’s Leadership Academy and the Caribbean Cultural Center’s Cultural Advocacy Fellowship. She’s built relationships with faith communities across West Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, and the U.S.

Recently, as Director of the Beyond Identity Program at City College of New York, she’s mentored young women of color and explored her own matrilineage through interdisciplinary art. Her first installation, *Sir Dolo (On the Water)*, is on exhibit at the Louisiana State Capitol Park Museum.

Dr. Booker splits her time between New York, where she teaches at City College, and Louisiana, where she’s a Monroe Fellow at Tulane and works to preserve Kouri Vini, Louisiana's endangered Creole language.