Scholar. Builder. BelieveR.
Advancing Intersectional Flourishing via Scholarship, Mentorship, and Entrepreneurship.
Dr. Krystale E. Littlejohn is an award-winning associate professor, author, speaker, and social entrepreneur whose work supports freedom architectures in the academy and beyond.
Using Sociology for Social Good
research that shapes praxis
I’m proud to conduct research that is helping to reshape the social landscape for the better. My work sits at the intersection multiple disciplines and subfields, namely sociology, public health, psychology, and neuroscience. It is known for being rigorous, accessible, and theoretically ambitious.
Check out my books by clicking the link below and check out my CV here.
My mission is to help people from marginalized communities control the course of their lives–in the academy and beyond. I uncover the barriers to doing so via my research, translate that into applied practice via my writing and public speaking, and enact that change myself on the ground via social entrepreneurship.
I can do this because I know a thing or two about hardship. And about creating new conditions for thriving.
I grew up poor in housing projects in Los Angeles. My life came with all the things that poverty brings: lack of food, lack of housing, lack of health insurance, lack of lots of things required to have a healthy life as a child.
But, that life also came with many things that made me the resilient, joyful, and optimistic person that I am today. Perhaps foremost of those things was an entrepreneurial spirit borne of having to figure out how to use my brain and skills to survive and thrive.
Entrepreneurship that Changes Lives
Marrying intellect to owned income started early for me because it had to.
While I thought that I’d outgrow my need for entrepreneurship once my life became more stable, I realized while getting my PhD at Stanford that being an entrepreneur is just part of who I am. So, I graduated from side hustles as a kid to side gigs as a graduate student. And I didn’t stop building.
Now, I use my research and entrepreneurship to solve social problems and I teach others to do the same.
I founded Rising Heights Consulting to mobilize research insights for mission-driven organizations building liberation architectures in marginalized communities. And, I founded Rise Hive so other women of color academics on the tenure track can forge their own conditions for freedom via entrepreneurship.
Whether you’re a funder, executive director, or woman of color academic searching for a community that gets it, I’m glad you found me.
Academic Research
My research program centers questions related to social epistemology, risk, and decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. My latest projects focus on interrogating the intersections of race and gender with the social organization of reproductive labor as well as developing a new framework for understanding risk tolerance in contraceptive use among couples. View my CV.
Ways to Solve Problems Together
Rising Heights Consulting
I founded Rising Heights to champion racial, economic, and reproductive justice by mobilizing research insights for organizations building liberation architectures in marginalized communities. Our goal is to help create a world where every person gets the help they need because every organization fighting for them has the research capacity to demonstrate their impact, tell their story, and sustain their work. If you’re interested in working together, email me.
Rise Hive
Rise Hive is the entrepreneurship education and training platform I founded to help address the wealth gap for women of color academics. My goal is to teach women of color academics and others underserved in the entrepreneurship space to build independence beyond their institutions so that they cannot only earn financial security, but keep it and ensure it lasts for generations. You can learn more about our signature program, Profitable PhD, and join the waitlist.