Aysha Upchurch, the Dancing Diplomat, is an artist and educator who creates, facilitates, and designs for radical change. She is a sought after performer, instructor and education
consultant whose work sits at the nexus of youth advocacy, social justice, and transformative education. She has shared her experience and expertise about artfully designing equitable and culturally relevant classrooms, the importance of dance and movement
in education, and embracing Hip Hop as a powerful literacy and lens in schooling at national conferences and most recently at TedxUConn. Aysha is currently on faculty at Harvard, where she teaches new courses on Hip Hop pedagogy and embodied learning, and
launched HipHopEX - an intergenerational collaborative lab for high school and graduate students to explore Hop Hop arts in education. Whether on the stage or in a classroom, Aysha is an ambassador on how to be D.O.P.E. - dismantling oppression and pushing education.