Baker Artist Portfolios

Dr. Ali-Coleman is a community organizer and cultural architect with over 20 years of applied experience transforming places into arts and educational spaces. Her work tangles with our perceptions of identity, justice, and space and represents the spectrum of womanhood, often highlighting the lived experiences of Black women over 40. Reveling in her multiple identites as a creator, she is award-winning performance artist Khadijah Moon, and a multi-genre writer who is a poet, singer/songwriter, playwright and filmmaker. Her plays, songs and poetry has been staged, workshopped and read on dozens of stages, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Theater Alliance, Anacostia Playhouse, The Baltimore Book Festival, National Harbor, ARTSCAPE, Capital Fringe Fest, The Baltimore Book Festival, and Anacostia Arts Center. Dr. Ali-Coleman is author of the published and forthcoming poetry collections Halos for Heroes, Friends and a Few People I Don't Like (2026), A Park Stands on All of Our Graves (2025), For the Girls Who Do Too Much (2024), The Summoning of Black Joy (2023), the children's book Mariah's Maracas (2018) and co-editor of the book Homeschooling Black Children in the US: Theory, Practice and Popular Culture (2022).

Dr. Ali-Coleman is founding director of Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice, a 501(c)3 nonprofit started in 2024. She founded the multidisciplinary arts group Liberated Muse in 2008 and co-founded the national education research group, Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, LLC (BFHES), in 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 quarantine. BFHES has provided a supportive space for over 3000 families since then, offering annual teach-ins and workshops. She has maintained the youth development blog So Our Youth Aspire since 2006. Dr. Ali-Coleman has been featured in the The Washington Post, USA Today, The Guardian, The Financial Times and more because of her work in arts and education. She has been interviewed by various broadcast media outlets, including NPR, CNN, Slate, and local affiliates of NBC, FOX and CBS.

​For over 20 years, she has created and led educational programs at numerous institutions, and has taught English, Communication Studies, Professional Writing and Fine & Performing Arts at different colleges and universities since 2011, including Montgomery College, The University of Maryland, Community College of Baltimore County and Prince George's Community College. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Humanities department at Coppin State University in Baltimore, MD where she is currently based.

Dr. Ali-Coleman is a professional member of The Dramatists Guild, The Recording Academy and the Association of African American Museums. Her plays can be found on the New Play Exchange. She has been awarded grants and fellowships for her writing, performance and teaching from the Maryland State Arts Council, Prince George's Arts and Humanities Council, Watering Hole Poetry, Poets & Writers, Prince George's Community College Foundation, and Northern Virginia Community College. She served as the second Poet Laureate of Prince George's County, MD from 2023-2025.

Dr. Ali-Coleman holds a doctorate in education from Morgan State University; a Master of Arts degree in Mass Communication from Towson University; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (African American Studies and Mass Media) with a minor in Writing from the University of Maryland Baltimore, County (UMBC). She earned a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the Workplace Certificate from the University of South Florida, Muma College of Business in 2021.