Ami Kantawala, Ed.D. is a scholar, arts educator, and program administrator with over two decades of experience in art teacher education, leadership, and community engagement. Her research is grounded in critical historical inquiry, counter-narratives, and leadership through a social justice lens. She investigates questions around undocumented and marginalized histories, biographical and postcolonial studies, international art education, mentoring, research methods, and the role of theory in educational practice.

Currently, she serves as Adjunct Associate Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Lecturer at Boston University, where she teaches graduate-level courses in leadership, research methods, writing for publication, and art education histories. She works with pre-service and in-service educators, museum professionals, and teaching artists in PK–16 and alternative learning spaces—helping them build reflective, responsive, and justice-oriented practices.

Ami brings a growing specialization in educational technology, developed through years of designing asynchronous graduate courses. She is especially interested in how EdTech and AI can extend culturally responsive pedagogy, research and reflexive practice into remote and hybrid learning environments.

From 2020 to 2023, she served as Senior Editor of Art Education, the flagship journal of the National Art Education Association. She led a 52-member editorial board, mentoring a wide range of authors and producing 18 issues that explored racial injustice, civic agency, war trauma, and pandemic resilience—alongside practical curricular tools for educators.

At the heart of her work is a belief in education as a space for transformation—where lived experience, research, and reflection come together to build inclusive and imaginative futures.