Dr. Sierra Austin-King is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and an Ohio Prison Educational Exchange Program faculty member. She specializes in Black feminist thought, with an emphasis on how social systems, curricula, pedagogy, and educational practices & policy shape the academic experiences of Black girls. She is also interested in the ways in which Black girls and women engage in genealogies of resistance against state-sanctioned and institutional violence, using Black afterlives as an operative analytic.
https://opeep.osu.edu/people/austin.261
How and when did you become involved with OPEEP?
I became involved with OPEEP in Spring 2023 when I participated in the program’s faculty training, at the recommendation of a colleague. I’m currently teaching my first class, Gender Sex and Power, at ORW. My students are phenomenal!
What course will you be teaching in Spring 2026, and what topics are you excited about covering with your students?
I’ll be teaching my second OPEEP course in Spring 2026, History of Feminist Thought. I’m excited to talk about social movements, unsung feminist heroes, and draw parallels between current & historical events.
Goals/takeaways you’d like your students to leave class with?
I always hope students leave my courses able to define and apply key disciplinary concepts, such as power, privilege, intersectionality, and feminist epistemology, to their everyday lives. I also hope students grow more confident in their analytical & communication skills, are more critical media consumers, and that they feel compelled to be an agent for social change.
What is the one thing you wish more people knew about prison abolition and transformative justice?
One thing I wish more people knew about prison abolition and transformative justice is how radically imaginative the work is! Being a part of OPEEP is one of the things I’m most proud of, and something that brings me a lot of joy! Prison abolition and transformative justice are deeply rooted in a historical and ongoing struggle for liberation, which has been shaped by centuries of oppression. Understanding prison abolition and transformative justice necessitates that we look at how systems of control have evolved over time, as well as how Black feminisms are central to envisioning alternative systems of justice.
Additionally, as someone whose extended family has been negatively impacted by the prison industrial complex, it’s rewarding to have an opportunity to give name to, and disrupt, a system that first negatively impacted me as a little girl. Having the language to unpack that childhood experience now as an educator, activist, and parent is a big part of the social justice practice I strive to espouse daily, and is ultimately a part of the legacy I want to leave behind.
What do you like to do in your free time?
What’s that, LOL?? As a daughter, wife, and mom of three (including one-year-old twins), free time is few and far between! However, I love trying new foods, reading historical fiction, and visiting New Orleans.
