Black Excellence: Jessica Rucker
https://amst.umd.edu/directory/jessica-rucker
Jessica A. Rucker (she/her/youngin’) is a doctoral student in the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is studying Black radicalisms. Jessica is an instructor, a President’s Fellow, and a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. Jessica was previously a 2023-2025 graduate assistant at the Frederick Douglass Center for Leadership Through the Humanities, a 2023-2024 DISCO Graduate Scholar, a 2023 summer Tenant Organizing Fellow with DC Jobs with Justice, and a 2022-2023 Prentiss Charney Fellow. Prior to Jessica’s graduate work, she was a DC high school social studies teacher, department chair, and instructional coach, as well as a participant in the 2018 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Teacher Institute at Duke University. She has also volunteered as a docent at both the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American History. Jessica resides in her home city, the U.S. colony of Washington, D.C., on the unceded ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank, with her loving partner.