Damien Schnyder is a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara.

His dissertation addressed the connection between the public education and prison systems. In conversation with the school-to-prison pipeline scholarship, Damien's dissertation analyzed the micro-processes by which public education as a state structure facilitates the movement of black male bodies into the labyrinth of the prison system. However, departing from the body of literature, he details how the public education structure is an ideological and pragmatic extension of the organizational logic of prison.

Building upon his dissertation project, Damien's current research as a postdoctoral scholar builds on his dissertation project and provides a needed analysis with regard to the effects of the expansion of the prison system upon public education. In addition, building upon the work of scholars of prison masculinity, his analysis will provide detailed linkages with respect to the construction of black masculinity by the prison and public education systems.

Damien received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a M.A. in sociology and B.A. in African and African American Studies from Stanford University.

Visit the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program website