Magaela Bethune

Magaela C. Bethune, Ph.D. (she/hers) is an author, researcher, and assistant professor of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. She received her Ph.D. in Community Research and Action from Vanderbilt University. Magaela earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology, a minor in Africana Studies, and a Master of Public Administration degree from Georgia Southern University. Her research looks at adolescent media and technology use and its impact on socialization, behavior, health, and development at various intersections of race, gender, and sexuality.

While at Vanderbilt, she collaborated on several research projects, including the Pathways to African American Success preventive intervention program with Vanderbilt’s Center for Research on Rural Families and Communities, which promotes parent-child communication to reduce sexual risk engagement in rural African American youth. In 2013, she joined the American Psychological Association – Black Entertainment (APA-BET) Research Collaborative to explore the health communication preferences among African American youth for receiving HIV/STI prevention and sexual health information. She also worked as the study coordinator in the Center for Health Services Research at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, evaluating the usability of a web-delivered, medication adherence promotion intervention for type-2 diabetes patients. More recently she worked with Centerstone Research Institute and the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, to design and implement a community-based research project examining the barriers, challenges and strategies for Tennessee youth and young adults to navigate mental health in their communities. Another thread of her research examines racial and gender disparities within the Christian church.

Her teaching and research interests lie in the following areas: race & health; race, gender, & sexuality; Black studies; digital media & technology; health policy & policy studies; and social justice. As a social justice-oriented educator, she emphasizes cultivating, facilitating, and partaking in a co-teaching and learning community that is nurtured through knowledge exchange, reflexive praxis, and real-world applications. With Dr. Venus Evans-Winters, she co-authored an edited volume, entitled (Re)Teaching Trayvon: Education for Racial Justice and Human Freedom.