Opening Address Speaker

Mamta Motwani Accapadi, Ph.D.

 

Mamta Motwani Accapadi is a professional work-in-progress. Just having completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Women’s Studies at the University of Houston, Mamta has also served as an “academinistreducator,” with multiple responsibilities at The University of Texas at Austin. She is now transitioning into her full time employment as mother, and she also does social justice/diversity consulting.

Mamta’s academic research interests are grounded in Asian American identity development, privilege exploration, intersections of identity, and leadership development/mentorship for under-represented communities. She earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration (although she firmly believes that the degree belongs to her mother). Her dissertation research explored how participation in Asian American interest sororities impacted the identity development of Asian American women.

Mamta has served as a national co-chair of APINCORE, the pan-Asian American caucus of the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education, and recently served as a member of the National Advisory Committee of NCORE. She has worked to support pan-Asian initiatives in higher education, while working collaboratively with the Asian American organization leadership of ACPA and NASPA.

Mamta attended her first SJTI in December 2001, where she first learned how to use her voice, and that her voice was a necessary part of the anti-racism dialogue. She served as an intern in June 2003, where she learned that sometimes, breaking the rules was okay. When she had the opportunity to attend SJTI 2 in January 2007, she learned that healing was possible. As a guest faculty member in June 2007, she experienced every emotion, every fear, every struggle, and every triumph that she experienced in all of her SJTI experiences combined- this experience taught her that the cycle of learning, growth, and healing never ends. SJTI truly changed her life.