A community-focused leader, and intersectional, multi-passionate intellectual in the making.

Ms. Kellier, B.A., is a first-year graduate student of Urban and Community Planning, and will earn her Master of Science from the School of Architecture from the Pratt Institute. Prior to this, Madison earned her BA from Case Western University, where she double majored in Pre-Architectural Studies and Psychology. Additionally, while at CWRU, Madison was a student leader, across the Real Estate Club, Sisterhood Organization, SoCA Club, and the Black Student Union. Madison Kellier also demonstrated academic strength by making the Dean's List several times in her undergraduate career. Madison is also a recognized creative, having won the Poetry Slam twice. Madison's resume can be supplied for select inquiries.

Her undergraduate research takes shape across three overlapping threads. The first examines the psychological costs of the Strong Black Woman Schema — how endorsement of the Superwoman ideal relates to emotional suppression, chronic stress, and mental health outcomes for Black women. The second considers the underdiagnosis of autism in Black men and women, and what current diagnostic patterns reveal about who is recognised and who is missed. The third reads the historical constraints of jezebel and mammy stereotypes against contemporary patterns of appropriation by white women. Each is taken up at greater length on the Selected Work page.

The move to planning is not a departure from this work; it is a translation of it. The Pratt program is built around equity- building improvements to the built environment, environmental and social justice, and an intersectional approach to who cities are designed for. The psychological literature on stigma, access, and culturally responsive care answers questions about people; the planning literature on housing, neighbourhoods, and public space answers questions about the conditions those people live in. The connection between the two — what one field knows that the other should — is something Madison is at the start of articulating, not the end.

Her work on the Strong Black Woman Schema has been supervised by Yehudis Keller, mentor, Department of Psychological Sciences. For correspondence about collaboration, graduate inquiries, or reading suggestions, the contact page is the most reliable way to reach her.