Natalie King-Shaw (she/her/ella) is a first year PhD student at Harvard in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT) and a Doctoral Research Fellow in the SAiL Literacy Lab at MGH-IHP. Natalie graduated from San Diego State University (SDSU) in May of 2023 with a B.A. in Psychology, a B.A. in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and minors in Spanish and Leadership Development. Natalie co-founded the Black Lives Matter All the Time (BLMA) Research Collective in 2020, and the A.M.A.N.I. Project (a mentorship program for Black students attending predominantly white/minority Black elementary schools in San Diego) in 2022.
Natalie’s approach and interests as a scholar and research-activist have been informed by her positionality as a Black, biracial, cisgender woman who grew up in Sparks, Nevada. Natalie’s positionality has also been heavily influenced by her grandfather, who grew up in Panama to Jamaican and Bajan parents. Her family’s history and stories have helped her recognize the far too common pressure of linguistic and cultural assimilation placed on Black and brown students, and the effects this has on culture and belonging. Natalie plans to complete her clinical training through the SHBT Speech-Language Pathology track and to apply her research to increase culturally and linguistically-affirming educational spaces for multilingual and multi-dialectal children of color. She is passionate about continuing her work with BLMA and the A.M.A.N.I. Project to build spaces for Black students to feel safe, seen, and supported to thrive from K-12 to higher education and beyond.
Favorite Childhood Book: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
- Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT), Harvard University, Division of Medical Sciences Expected May 2029
- BA Psychology, San Diego State University
- BA Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, San Diego State University
Minors: Spanish, Leadership Development
- Cultural and linguistic diversity
- Literacy and language development
- Community based research
- Implementation science
Presentations
2023 King-Shaw, N.*, Kpormegbey, A.*, Wyatt, M., Black, K., Tate, T., Pruitt-Lord, S., Johnson, K. Cultivating Empowering Mentorship Practices for Students Ranging from Transitional Kindergarten to Higher Education and Beyond. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Annual Convention. Abstract accepted for Oral Presentation in November 2023. *Shared co-first authorship.
2023 King-Shaw, N.*, Kpormegbey, A.*, Wyatt, M., Black, K., Tate, T., Pruitt-Lord, S., Johnson, K. The Power of Mentorship: Tools to Empower Students Ranging from Transitional Kindergarten to Higher Education and Beyond. National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing (NBASLH) 45th Annual Convention. Oral Presentation. Washington, D.C. *Shared co-first authorship.
2023 King-Shaw, N., Pruitt-Lord, S. Analyzing Regional Dialect Variation In Children Who Are Black Vernacular English Speakers or Spanish-English Bilinguals: Implications for Clinical Practice. National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing (NBASLH) 45th Annual Convention. Poster Presentation. Washington, D.C.
2023 King-Shaw, N., Pruitt-Lord, S. Analyzing Regional Dialect Variation in Children’s Language: Implications for Clinical Practice. San Diego State University Student Symposium. Poster Presentation. San Diego, CA.
