Monika L. Son is an Assistant Professor, Chair and Director of the Percy Ellis Sutton SEEK Department of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. A self-proclaimed rejector of roles and categories, Dr. Son is known for walking to the beat of her own drum. Guided by heart-spirit, the ancestors, and palpable connections to suffering in the world, her calling has been grounded in finding ways to be free from the conditions of oppression to discover paths to self-realization, connection to the world and radical love. She is a mind, body, spirit teacher, healer, coach, truth-teller and a fierce loving warrior-leader.

With 20 years of experience in higher education as a justice-centered scholar and teacher, Dr. Son integrates mindfulness and contemplative practices to foster spaces for building community, compassionate engagement and healing oriented strategies that cultivate critical inquiry and action. As a trained psychologist and expert facilitator, she is skilled at supporting discomfort and ambiguity in challenging dialogues about race, power, privilege, and oppression. In her current role as Chair, she is co-building curricular strategies that center on resourcing resilience and undoing the impact of oppressive and racist pedagogy via critical methodologies such as contemplative, embodied, restorative, and Freirean approaches. She is most passionate about building strategies that support the undoing of internalized oppression and movement towards transformative change.