Katrina Brown-Aliffi

KATRINA BROWN-ALIFFI is a dance educator and teacher-leader at Democracy Prep Charter High School, the flagship school of Democracy Prep Public Schools in Harlem, New York, where she founded the school’s dance program in 2017. Prior to joining the Democracy Prep network, Brown-Aliffi built a middle school dance program within a different charter network located in NYC, where she taught for three years.

Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, Brown-Aliffi began dancing with The Dance Foundation. As an undergraduate student, she was a faculty member at Steel City Dance and Cheer, Birmingham Ballet, AileyCamp New York, Dance Et Cetera, and the Samford University Campus Rec Center. Since moving to New York, she has participated in several performance opportunities, including You and I Are Made with Shayne Staley and Brandon Mason in 2016 and Dance for the Movement with Theresa Lavington in 2020.

In 2016, Brown-Aliffi was presented with an Orlean Bullard Beeson School of Education Inaugural Learning for Life Award for her dedication to continued education and learning. In 2019, she authored Dance Education in New York City charter schools: An empirical research study published by the Journal of Dance Education in mid-2020. She is currently on contract with Human Kinetics as a co-author of the Dance Education edTPA Online Preparation Guide, an in-progress collaboration with Dr. Mila Parrish, to be published in 2021.

Brown-Aliffi earned a B.A. in Human Development and Family Studies from Samford University in 2013, an M.S. in General and Special Education from Touro College in 2014, and an M.A. in Dance Education from University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2019. She is grateful for the opportunity to have studied under, learned from, and collaborated with Dr. Clara Gerhardt, Dr. Mila Parrish, Dr. Martha Eddy, Diane McGhee Valle, and many other inspiring scholars during her B.A. and M.A. programs. Over the past several years, she has presented multiple workshops at the Southeastern Council on Family Relations, the National Dance Education Organization, and the International School Choice and Reform annual conferences.

Brown-Aliffi will complete an Interdisciplinary specialization as a doctoral student in the Ed.D. Dance Education Program at Teachers College. She plans to continue to study dance and arts education within the charter sector and hopes to expand upon the body of knowledge currently available on the state of dance education programming within charter schools. Secondary research interests include intergenerational relationship-building between public charter schools and senior centers within the community through movement and dance.

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