Dr. LaToya Lydia Sawyer (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor in the English Department at St. John’s University. She has a Ph.D. in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric from Syracuse University with an advanced certificate in Women and Gender Studies. Sawyer is a 2020-2021 AAUW American Fellow. Her research focuses on Black women’s rhetorical agency and identity performances offline and in digital spaces. Sawyer’s current project is a book manuscript about Black women’s rhetorical agency on social media and examines how these users employ critical cultural and digital literacy practices on online platforms to combat oppression and erasure. Her previous work has appeared in Peitho. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in digital rhetoric, feminist theory, African American women’s rhetoric, and African American literacies.

Sawyer is a Queens (NY) native, writer, and educator. She has a BA in English from Hartwick College and a MA in Online Media, Magazine and Newspaper Journalism from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.