Monique Lane

Dr. Monique Lane, also known as Dr. Mo, is a dedicated motherscholar, award-winning practitioner, and Co-Director of the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership for Equity and Social Change program at Saint Mary's College of California. Born and raised in South Los Angeles, Dr. Lane is a proud three-time UCLA alum, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with minors in Education and Applied Developmental Psychology (2003), a Master’s Degree in Education and a teaching credential (2005), and a PhD in Urban Schooling (2014). After earning her doctorate, Dr. Lane received the Provost’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Columbia University’s Teachers College, where she taught and conducted research for two years. 

Dr. Lane had the privilege of teaching high school English at her alma mater in South Los Angeles for several years, an experience that rooted her practice in Black feminist pedagogical traditions. During this time, she was recognized by her school community as “Most Inspirational Teacher” (2006), “One of the Most Dedicated Teachers” (2007), and “Faculty Member of the Year” (2008). This grounding has carried into her work at Saint Mary’s College, where she engages students with a mix of radical vulnerability and bold pedagogical risks to prepare doctoral students to lead in turbulent times. In 2025, she received SMC’s distinguished “Teaching Excellence Award,” which honors one faculty member each year for sustained teaching prowess. 

A scholar-activist, Dr. Lane’s research reflects expertise in self-reflexive, justice-centered, and critical methodologies—including critical race feminist autoethnographic and phenomenological research, teacher action research, Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), and exploratory research studies. Impressively, she is also a recognized thought leader in the growing fields of Black girlhood studies and Black feminist pedagogy, with her scholarship featured in Equity & Excellence in Education, International Journal of Educational Reform, and The Urban Review. In 2021, Peter Lang published her first book, Engendering #BlackGirlJoy: How to Cultivate Empowered Identities and Educational Persistence in Struggling Schools. 

Dr. Lane has shared her scholarship on local and national stages, with her latest publication challenging Eurocentric ideations of motherhood and educational parenting through a study of Black mothers' “Ethos of Radical Protection” in response to their daughters’ differential treatment in schools. Her forthcoming work also includes an entry on “Emancipatory Qualitative Inquiry” for the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia for Social Justice in Education and a co-authored chapter with Ed.D. students, “Radical Imagination in Action,” for the edited volume Bold and Visionary Leadership: How EdD Research Can Reframe Equity Issues in Higher Education. Across these projects, Dr. Lane continues to illuminate pathways toward more humanizing and liberatory futures in education.