Dr. Jasmine Blanks Jones
Board Member
JASMINE L. BLANKS JONES, is a dynamic theatre nonprofit leader, award-winning educator, and dual Ph.D. in Education and Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She taught music in Harford County Public Schools and was awarded the inaugural Baltimore Raven's Touchdown for Teachers award. Her research on civic engagement and the arts focuses on global race-based inequities in education and health and the potential of Black youth creatives. As founder of Burning Barriers Building Bridges Youth Theatre (B4YT), a cultural performance company dedicated to radical community empowerment through the arts, she has more than twenty years of experience in youth development in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
Having developed a track record of leadership in arts and advocacy in communities of color globally, in 2018 Jasmine extended the scope of B4YT to include a consulting practice, Creating Brave Stages, which provides support and guidance for advocacy organizations looking to integrate the arts into their movements and artists aspiring to create positive change through their performances. She holds a Masters of Public Policy from the University of Minnesota and Bachelor of Science in Music Education from Florida A&M University. She is a postdoctoral fellow with the Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship at Johns Hopkins University and a grateful mother of two fun toddlers.
