Laura Porterfield

Laura Krystal Porterfield, Ph.D. is an urban educator, visualist, and youth culture scholar. Having grown up in El Paso, Texas, Laura is the daughter of two Mississippi transplants who instilled in her the value and promise of higher education.
She went on to receive her B.A. in English with a concentration in African/African-American Literature from the University of Rochester and her Ph.D. and M.A. in Urban Education from Temple University. Laura is currently an Assistant Professor of Social and Cultural Foundations in the Educational Foundations Department at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, teaching on the philosophy of education, urban education, and multicultural education. Her research is inherently inter-disciplinary, drawing primarily from education, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and geography.
Broadly speaking, Laura writes on how youth learn about varying forms of human difference from visual texts and from their everyday spaces/places. Laura is a fierce youth advocate who believes it is her life’s work to prepare inspiring and quality future educators and to demand equitable educational opportunity for all.