Sophia Vilceus

Sophia Sunshine Vilceus is a Ph.D student in The School of Education at The University of Delaware, specializing in Sociocultural and Community-Based Approaches. Her research centers around how Black high-school girls infer their mattering and find and curate spaces of joy at school and broadly in society.

Sophia has earned degrees from The CUNY City College of New York and Howard University, where she studied English/Creative Writing, Black Studies, and African Studies. She is the author of “His & Her Will Be Done”, “Late Conversations With My Late Mother” and “The Last Pew: Journeying Back to God’s Will After an Affair.”

Education

• M.A, African Studies, Howard University, Washington, DC, 2013
• B.A, English and Black Studies, CUNY City College of New York, New York, NY 2011

Professional Experience

• Graduate Research Assistant, Black Boy Mattering Project, University of Delaware (2022-Present)
• Graduate Assistant, McNair Scholars Program, University of Delaware (2022-2023)
• Graduate Research Assistant, Delaware Academy for School Leadership, University of Delaware (2021–2022)

Honors and Awards

• Dean’s Scholar, College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware, 2021-present

Publications

• Vilceus, S.S. (2022). His & Her Will Be Done. Hunter Heart Entertainment Network.
• Vilceus, S.S. (2017). Late Conversations With My Late Mother. Hunter Entertainment Network.
• Vilceus, S.S. (2015). The Last Pew: Journeying Back to God’s Will After an Affair. Hunter Heart Publishing.

Presentations

• Carey, R., Marianno, L., Miller, M., Polanco, C., Vilceus, S.S (2023, April) The Contours of Black Adolescent Boys’ Perceived School Mattering During a Health Crisis and Racial Reckoning. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois.

• Steele Symposium (2023), Black Girlhood: Joy & Mattering as Resistance. The University of Delaware, Poster Presentation.