Jen Neitzel, Ph.D.
Dr. Jen Neitzel is the Executive Director of the Educational Equity Institute. She received her B.S. degree in child development from the University of Pittsburgh and then began her career in the classroom in Pittsburgh as a teacher of young children with significant behavioral challenges. In 1998, she moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she worked in a group home for adults with autism. Following this, she began her studies at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, where she received a master’s degree in early intervention. Dr. Neitzel then returned to the classroom where she was a teacher in a model demonstration classroom for toddlers with autism at the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute.
Her quest for knowledge was not finished, however. After 2 years in the classroom, Dr. Neitzel began her doctoral studies at UNC-Chapel Hill where she earned a Ph.D. in education in 2004, specializing in early childhood. Her oldest son, Josh, was 6 months old when she defended her dissertation. To maintain a healthy balance between work and being a mother, she worked on various projects at FPG focused on autism and response to intervention. Dr. Neitzel finally became a full-time researcher and technical assistance provider in 2012. During this time, she began work on a project focused on examining the disproportionality in suspensions and expulsions of young Black children, particularly boys. As a White person, she had two choices: she could act like she hadn’t see the data because they did not affect her or her family in a meaningful way, or she could be a part of the solution. Dr. Neitzel chose the latter, and thus began her work in educational equity. As she delved deeper into this area, she started examining the role of implicit biases in early childhood, sources of trauma, culturally responsive practices, and systems change.
In 2018, Dr. Neitzel started the Educational Equity Institute (www.educationalequityinstitute.com), a nonprofit based in Charlotte, North Carolina, that is focused on promoting equity and justice through racial healing and systems change. She is widely published in peer-reviewed journals and is the author of Achieving Equity and Justice in Education Through the Work of Systems Change (Lexington Books, 2020). Dr. Neitzel lives in Charlotte with her husband, Craig, and their three sons, Josh, Gabe, and Luke.