Dr. Sonia James-Wilson

Dr. Sonia James-Wilson has enjoyed a long and varied career in urban education and the arts for over 35 years. Her experiences include service as a classroom teacher, school director, college and university professor, researcher, consultant and teaching artist. In 2008, Dr. James-Wilson established Catalyst Research and Development to engage educators in the use of equity-focused, culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy in order to increase student motivation and academic achievement. Over the years as Principal Consultant, her areas of specialization have included program development, teacher leadership, school improvement, redesign and restructuring, strategic planning, program evaluation, and arts education. 

As an undergraduate, Dr. James-Wilson double-majored in Music (with a concentration in vocal performance and ethnomusicology), and Early Childhood/Elementary Education. She went on to earn master’s degrees in both Elementary Education and Educational Administration, and she holds a doctorate degree from the University of Toronto in Educational Thought and Policy Studies, with a concentration in educational administration. 

Dr. James-Wilson is permanently certified to teach grades 1 to 6 in New York State, and she worked for 7 years as a classroom teacher of children in kindergarten and grade 1 and grades 3–6. Additionally, she has taught creative movement and visual arts to children in grades K–6, and photography to youth in grades 6–8. 

As a Program Director, Dr. James-Wilson provided leadership for the Ontario Arts Education Institute, a collaboration between York University in Toronto, the Toronto District School Board, and the Royal Ontario Museum. She has also served as the Director of the Young Musicians Institute, a component of the Gateways Music Festival which is held in Rochester, New York. 

As a professional development facilitator, Dr. James-Wilson provided services to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Ifetayo Cultural Arts Facility, Dream Yard Project (all in New York City), and the Rochester office of the National Aesthetic Education Institute. She has also conducted program evaluation and facilitated strategic planning for various arts centers including Dream Yard Project (South Bronx, NY), NYC Kids Project (New York, NY), Brooklyn Information and Culture (BRIC) (Brooklyn, NY), and the Flower City Arts Center, and ROCmusic both in Rochester, New York. 

To help inform arts education policy and practice, Dr. James-Wilson served on the Arts in Education Roundtable for the Arts and Cultural Council of Greater Rochester, and as a member of various arts organizations including the National Arts Education Association, the Performing Arts Organizations Network for Education, and the Arts Education Council of Ontario. Currently, she is a board member and Finance Committee Chair for the Gateways Music Festival, which connects and supports professional classical musicians of African descent through an annual festival that includes chamber and full orchestra performances in concert halls, community centers, houses of worship and homeless shelters. 

Dr. James-Wilson has continued her work in higher education as a visiting scholar in the School of Education and Social Sciences at the University of Embu in Kenya. She is a lead partner in The ArtLab Project which is a collaboration between Catalyst Research and Development, the University of Embu, and Kangaru District Education Board Primary School, and co-director of the ArtLab Research Consortium. The ArtLab facility provides a space for educators across the region of East Africa to increase their capacity design and implement arts-based competency-based curriculum, and supports empirical research in the area of child psychology in order to inform national educational policy.