Alaina Neal-Jackson
Connect
Location
1360 C
610 E. University Ave.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1259
Dr. Alaina Neal-Jackson (AM ’12, PhD ’18) is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education and Director of the REACH Restorative Justice Center at The School at Marygrove. She is a scholar deeply invested in understanding the complex interconnections of race, racism, and gender, and how they shape the academic and life experiences of Black girls and women. Her work is grounded in a deep commitment to the overall well-being of Black students, their families, and the broader communities to which they belong.
Drawing on sociological perspectives and critical race and gender theories, Neal-Jackson examines how schools function as social institutions that shape opportunity, identity, and inequity. Her scholarship extends beyond traditional research to include the design and implementation of school-based, justice-centered practices. She works alongside students, educators, and community partners to reimagine what more just and humanizing educational spaces can be, with a particular focus on the transformative potential of restorative justice in both P–12 and teacher education contexts.
Through her leadership at the REACH Center, she builds and sustains relational, intergenerational approaches to restorative justice that center student voice, cultivate leadership, and support healing and accountability within school communities. Her work bridges research and practice, attending to both the structural conditions that shape inequity and the everyday interactions that make more just futures possible.
Neal-Jackson earned her bachelor’s degree in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley, and both her master’s in Educational Leadership and Policy and her doctorate in Educational Studies from the University of Michigan. She is a proud alumna of the McNair Scholars Program and the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. Her scholarship has been published in the Review of Educational Research, Teachers College Record, Journal of College Student Development, and Journal of Educational Administration and History.