Mariaeloisa Carambo, mother-scholar, is the daughter of a Venezuelan-Cuban mother and an Afro-Cuban father. After attaining a Bachelor of Arts in History from Swarthmore College and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Brown University, Mariaeloisa went on to teach in middle and high school settings in Philadelphia for nine years. Her work in developing anti-racist seminars for teachers paired with her experiences in the classroom led her to enter Drexel's PhD in Education program. As a current PhD student, her research interests include exploring how anti-Black state violence manifests in the classroom, and how the use of abolitionist pedagogies that center (Black) joy and radical love function as micro-political acts of resistance. She situates her work in broader discourses of decolonial theory and abolitionist Black queer feminist thought, as well as Afro-futurist imaginations of a more just and liberated future. Additionally, her PhD work includes a graduate research fellowship that allows her to work as a research assistant for Drexel School of Education Justice Oriented Youth (JoY) lab collaborating on intergenerational and arts-based community-based research projects in the West Philadelphia and Mantua area.