Kovie Biakolo is a journalist, writer, and lecturer specializing in culture, identity, and multiculturalism. She has reported and written stories on migration, inequality, race and nationality, pop culture, and the arts, for various publications including The Atlantic, Essence Magazine, The Nation, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, etc. Kovie is currently the Distinguished Lecturer/Director for the Arts and Culture reporting program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. She has also been named a Tow Professor for the 2022-2024 academic years by the Tow Foundation, obtaining research support for demonstrating exceptional leadership in the field. In 2021, Kovie obtained a Lipman Fellowship from Columbia University to report on black migrants arriving at the southern border. In February 2022, The Nation Magazine published the resulting story, “The Black Migrant Trail of Tragedies.” Her debut book Foremothers: 500 Years of Heroines from the African Diaspora was acquired by Amistad, an imprint of Harper Collins, and is set to be published in 2024. Previously, Kovie has also been a National Press Foundation Data & Accountability Fellow (Jan. 2022), led entertainment news coverage during #MeToo at BuzzFeed News (2017-2019), a Novy Sholar (2014), and with her academic background in multiculturalism, taught Intercultural Communication at DePaul University in Chicago (2014).