Cassandra began her journey in New York City, but has lived, studied and worked internationally for many years. She brings more than 10 years of research experience in various cross-border EU funded projects. Her expertise in the fields of ethnography, women and gender studies, Black Diaspora in Europe, German postcolonial studies and migration studies formed the foundation for her work in the areas of diversity, anti-discrimination and social justice. She lectures internationally and has published in various languages on these topics.
In 2012 Cassandra led the organizational team for the Diversity2- conference in Mannheim, which featured Dr. Auma Obama as the keynote speaker. She was also the creative energy behind the 2013 First German Diversity Day for Stadtmarketing Mannheim, and published a report of the event which was featured on the Cities of Migration website.
Cassandra was invited in 2015 to advise and join the curatorial team for the Humboldt Lab Dahlem Ethnological Museum, Berlin. She co-curated the exhibition “(K)ein Platz an der Sonne- “No Place in the Sun” .
Cassandra is a certified diversity/social justice and specializes in empowerment trainings for Black, migrant and refugee women of color. From 2011-2019 she served as a board member of Eine Welt der Vielfalt e.V. Berlin (Anti-Defamation League – A World of Difference ®). She was an academic Fellow at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies (2013-2014) and a network member of the Black Diaspora in Germany Scholars Project funded by the German Research Foundation (2010-2014). From January 2016-May 2019 she worked with the refugee team of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit – Team-180 Flucht & Asyl (Federal Employment Agency).
Along with conducting workshops as a certified diversity trainer in the “World of Difference”® method and intercultural communication, Cassandra is currently a guest faculty member at Bard College Berlin.
She is a board member of Frauenloop and chairperson of the project “Für eine kulturvolle, solidarische Welt e.V.”, Träger des Interkulturellen Frauenzentrums S.U.S.I.
In May 2019 she accepted the post as a Senior Researcher at the Berlin University of Technology in the Interreg Central Europe research project SIforREF: “Integrating Refugees in Society and The Labour Market Through Social Innovation.”
Cassandra currently holds the position of Officer for Diversity & Inclusivity for the EU project YUFE: Young Universitities for the Future of Europe at University of Bremen: https://www.uni-bremen.de/kooperationen/hochschulkooperationen/yufe
Cassandra is fluent in German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Dutch.
Academic Biography
Cassandra earned her PhD in Comparative Cultural Studies/Anthropology at the University of Ghent, Belgium in 2006. Appointed by the University of Southampton, U.K., she worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2007-2010) for the EU Sixth Framework Project: SeFoNE. “Searching for Neighbours: The Dynamics of Mental and Physical Border in the New Europe”. She was later granted a Fellowship at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies (2013-2014) and was active simultaneously as a network member of the Black Diaspora in Germany Scholars Project funded by the DFG- German Research Foundation. She is also the co-editor and coordinating committee member of the bi-lingual 2018 publication: “The Black Diaspora and Germany”.