CGBS Creative Futures Fellows

Dr. Tina Carroll-Scott is a board-certified general pediatrician with more than 30 years of experience caring for children and families. She earned her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine, completing her internship and residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Miami Children’s Hospital. Throughout her career, Dr. Scott has been dedicated to serving underserved communities. She began by providing care to immigrant farmworker families in Fort Pierce, Florida, and has served as Medical Director of the South Miami Children’s Clinic since 2007. Dr. Scott is deeply committed to expanding access to healthcare and health education, recognizing both as essential to helping children grow into healthy, thriving individuals. Under her leadership, the clinic works to address social determinants of health—including housing and food insecurity—through strong community partnerships, guided by the belief that a community’s well-being is reflected in the health of its most vulnerable members.

Dr. Melanie Y. White is an Assistant Professor of Afro-Caribbean Studies in the Department of Black Studies and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University. In Spring 2026, she serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Black Miami Studies Fellow at the Center for Global Black Studies and the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Miami. Her research examines how Black communities in Caribbean Central America confront intimate colonial violence and create pathways of gendered sovereignty and belonging. Her book manuscript, Sovereign Mosquitia, explores Black, Indigenous, and Afro-Indigenous women’s anticolonial cultural and political practices on the Miskitu Coast. She is also developing a second project that positions Miami as a key city in the Americas and a contested yet vital site of Black life. Dr. White earned her Ph.D. in Africana Studies from Brown University.

Black Central Americans Project

Dejha Carrington is a community practitioner and administrator in the arts. In 2017, she co-founded Commissioner, a collaborative program that helps people support and collect the work of contemporary artists in their cities. As Executive Director, Dejha has introduced Commissioner in Miami, Detroit, New York, Montreal, Mexico City, and New Orleans, cultivating a growing network of emerging patrons.  Additionally, she serves as a professional advisory member of Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, the New York University Center for Black Visual Culture's Black Rest Project, and teaches at the New World School of the Arts at Miami-Dade College.  Through the CGBS Creative Futures Fellowship, she will be hosted by the University of Miami's School of Education and Human Development.

commissioner.us

Mysia Anderson-White is an assistant professor of Black Performance Theory in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego.  Mysia brings an actor’s discipline and versatility to her scholarly and creative work and tells stories that draw on the depth, resilience, and creative visions of the African Diaspora. Born and raised in Miami, her forthcoming manuscript, Black Miami in the Eye of the Storm: Performing Black Sustainability, examines performances of Black endurance and rootedness in the city. Mysia is a visiting professor in Theatre Arts at the University of Miami.

Mysia.art

Dorothy Fields, a native Miamian, is the founder of The Black Archives, History & Research Foundation of South Florida, Inc., a community repository. She saved the Lyric Theater and numerous other buildings in Miami’s Overtown from destruction. A Librarian, Reading Teacher, Public Historian, Certified Archivist, Historic Preservationist and Journalist, she began the movement to preserve the memory and landscape of Black Miami-Dade County. Through the CGBS Creative Futures Fellowship, Dr. Fields will be hosted by the University of Miami Libraries.

BAHLT

Demar Matthews is a Los Angeles based architectural designer and founder/Principal of OffTop Design. Born in Moreno Valley, CA.  Demar received his Bachelor's from HBCU Lincoln University and completed his Masters of Architecture at Woodbury University, where he was awarded the Graduate Thesis Prize for his project 'Black Architecture: Unearth-ing the Black Aesthetic'. His introduction to the field was through his article 'A Black Architecture Education Experience' in Archinect. Demar is the CGBS Social Justice in Design Fellow and is a visiting professor for the University of Miami’s School of Architecture.

offTOP Design

Valencia Gunder is a Miami native, Valencia "Vee" Gunder is the Criminal Justice Program Manager at the New Florida Majority, Founder of the Smile Trust Inc., formerly known as Make the Homeless Smile Miami and Atlanta, Co-Founder of The Black Collective and National Organizing lead of the RBG New Deal at M4BL.  Through the CGBS Creative Futures Fellowship she will be hosted by the University of Miami Law School's Human Rights Program.

BLACK COLLECTIVE

A nationally acclaimed painter, printmaker, draftsman, muralist and educator, Charles E. Humes, Jr. has been a professional fine Artist for over forty years.  Miami born, Humes comes from a rich family heritage of the Grand Turks, Exuma, and the Eleuthera Islands of the Bahamas.  Through the CGBS Creative Futures Fellowship, Charles was hosted by the Department of Art & Art History in the College of Arts & Sciences.

charleshumesjr.com

Nadege Green is the founder of Black Miami-Dade, a history and storytelling platform that resists the erasure of Miami's Black past.  She is also the Director of Community Research and Storytelling at the Community Justice Project, Inc.  An independent researcher, writer, editor and community activist, Nadege was born and raised in Miami-Dade county to Haitian immigrant parents. Through the CGBS Creative Futures Fellowship, Nadege was hosted by the University of Miami's School of Communication. 

NadegeGreen.com