Sonya Douglass Horsford

Sonya Douglass Horsford is an American academic who researches educational inequality in the United States, social justice, and education policy. Horsford is a professor of educational leadership at the Teachers College, Columbia University. In 1997, Horsford completed a B.A. in communications and journalism, cum laude, at Colorado State University. She earned a M.P.A. (2002) and Ed.D. in educational leadership (2007) at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Her dissertation was titled Vestiges of desegregation: Black superintendent reflections on the complex legacy of Brown v Board of Education. Horsford's doctoral advisor was Edith A. Rusch. Horsford researches educational inequality in the United States, social justice, and education policy. At UNLV, She was an assistant professor in the department of educational leadership at UNLV from 2008 to 2010 and a senior resident scholar of education from 2011 to 2013. From 2013 to 2016, Horsford was an associate professor in the graduate school of education at George Mason University. In 2016, Horsford joined the faculty at the Teachers College, Columbia University as an associate professor in the educational leadership program. In 2017, she became the Teachers College founding director of the Black Education Research Collective and co-director of the urban education leaders program. She became a full professor in the fall of 2021. Horsford married politician Steven Horsford in 2000. They have three children. Sonya Horsford filed for divorce in 2022. Steven Horsford had previously admitted to having an affair with a woman 15 years his junior starting when she was a 21-year-old college senior.