Kentucky State University | Jessany Maldonado

Dr. Jessany Maldonado

Professor, School of Psychology
School of Behavioral and Social Sciences

J.S. Hathaway Hall
Suite 226

Contact:

Phone: (502) 597-6008
Email: Jessany.Maldonado@kysu.edu

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Bio:

As a professor in the interdisciplinary fields of Psychological Sciences and Gender Studies, Dr. Maldonado lays the groundwork for students to recognize their power both within and outside of the classroom. Placed at the forefront of her teaching is the acknowledgement and exploration of diversity. This focus helps students examine ways to correct the imbalances of power that privilege some identities at the expense of others. Specifically, Dr. Maldonado’s student-centered approach facilitates a collaborative examination and intentional application of the field’s foundational principles to quotidian phenomena. Combined with her courses’ purposeful design to innovate and transform curious minds, these teaching strategies fulfill the following goals: encourage collaborative and interactive learning relationships within diverse groups and prepare students to execute theory-informed practice (social change) in their social world(s). Aligned with the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, her pedagogical practices and mentorship styles prepare students to commit to the recognition, affirmation, and inclusion of various identities, perspectives, and lived experiences. This purposeful commitment to praxis will lead to the creation of more equal and equitable societies around the globe.

Her high-impact pedagogy has been formally recognized by the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office and Faculty Development Committee at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. After only her first year of teaching as a professor, Dr. Maldonado was awarded the CAS Liberal Arts Teaching Award Honorable Mention for the academic year of 2023-2024. This recognition symbolizes the high-impact teaching outcomes of Dr. Maldonado’s pedagogy.

Having graduated magna cum laude from both Purdue University and the University of Northern Iowa, she earned a B.S. in Psychological Sciences with a minor in LGBT Studies and a M.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies, respectively. In 2023, she graduated summa cum laude (highest distinction) from Indiana University with her Ph.D. in Gender Studies. Valuing culturally affirmative and sex positive epistemologies, Dr. Jessany Maldonado’s empirical interests are situated within the study of human sexuality.

Dr. Jessany Maldonado’s bachelor’s research explored subcultural sexualities, where she examined how human attraction to non-human entities could be considered another type of queered sexualities in their own right. In contrast, her master’s thesis, entitled Afro Culture and Performance within the Bar Space, illustrated the complexities of Black sociocultural performances within spaces of leisure. She found that African Americans exercised community development, migration, and rituals of hospitality to foster and strengthen their kinship bonds in predominately Black spaces located within predominately non-Black cities. Her doctoral research, entitled Black Women-Loving Women’s Socio-Sexual Narratives, centered Black women and their socio-sexual experiences. Specifically, she found that Black women wield transformative power over their intimate lives in how they identify, occupy and transform space, and spiritualize physical intimacy.

Currently, Dr. Maldonado teaches various psychology and sociology classes within the School of Psychology at Kentucky State University. Along with her teaching responsibilities, she serves on the School of Psychology’s Professional Development committee and provides mentorship to motivated students who are prepared to advance in their professional careers. Finally, she continues to pursue ethnographic projects that investigate how Black women perform and intertwine spirituality and sexual intimacies; Black heterosexual men’s conceptualizations of masculinity and socio-sexual experiences with Black women; and the relational and spiritual perseverance of Black women’s interethnic relationships.

Research Interests:

Black women; African Diasporic sexualities; sexual eroticism; masculinities; subcultural sexualities; sex work; sex education; biopsychosocial and physical dynamics of sex

Education:

Publications:

Maldonado, J. (in preparation). Black kweer life in Atlanta: Black women-loving women’s socio sexual intimacies. Routledge.

Maldonado, J. (in preparation). “Who’s the girl? Who’s the guy?”: Black women’s kweer sex, heteronormalized.

Maldonado, J. (in press). “I know what I like”: Black women’s same-gender dating preferences. Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships, 11(1-2).