Dr. Debra Ren-Etta Sullivan is Past President of the Seattle Black Child Development Institute where the primary focus of her work has been implementing appropriate learning environments for Black children and working with families and communities to increase their advocacy for their children.  Her third book, Cultivating the Genius of Black Children, guides teachers in creating classrooms that support the learning needs of Black children and many other children with similar learning needs. 

She is Founder and Executive Director of Ashé Preparatory Academy, a P-12 inclusion school model based on cultivating genius for community action and co-founder of the Praxis Institute for Early Childhood Education – a diverse organization providing education and professional development.  She has worked in higher education for forty years as a teacher, researcher, curriculum developer, and administrator and has provided training, facilitation, and professional development to families and family service providers around leadership, family development, and cross-cultural interactions. Dr. Sullivan earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership and her master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction, both from Seattle University, and a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Washington. She was recently awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Champlain College in Vermont.