External Affairs Director
Pronouns: she/her
Phone: 213.740.5860
E-mail: tabari@usc.edu
Dr. Kim Tabari has a passion for social justice and education. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and has worked at both public and private institutions. Born in Guyana, South America, she has firsthand experience as an immigrant who later became a U.S. citizen—which you can read more about in this ERI blog piece.
As the External Affairs Director at the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI), Kim is part of the Executive Management Team and believes in the importance of maintaining relationships to bring about healing and transformation, especially during times of conflict. Kim works on ERI’s Community Engaged Research collaborations and the Scholar Activist Researcher program, partnering with community leaders to design and carry out projects—such as The Impact of Grief on Students and Society—that advance ERI’s field-building and community-engaged work.
She has also collaborated with Harvard University professor Dr. Karen Emmons to discuss innovative ways to support the health of Black women and other marginalized people, as detailed in Stress Less: Empowering Black Women and Communities of Color Utilizing Guaranteed Income Programs.
Kim enjoys presenting on various topics and her speaking engagements include: the webinar “Strength in Numbers: Uniting Immigration with Other Social Causes” hosted by The Immigrant Learning Center; and facilitating a USC Visions & Voices conversation with the Daughters of the Movement during the pandemic and nationwide racial justice uprisings.
Prior to ERI, Kim facilitated conversations on topics related to racial, social, and healing justice. She is a trained facilitator working with both high school and college students in the past, and currently works with diverse stakeholders at USC and beyond.
Outside of working at USC, her most important role is being a mom to an amazing young man currently in college. Kim is very active in her local community, working primarily with her local school district to improve the academic success of Black and other marginalized students. She embodies healing justice as a certified yoga instructor with a regular Tai Chi practice, facilitating online classes and engaging in other self-care modalities.