Lori Delale-O'Connor, PhD, is an assistant professor of education at the Center for Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Delale-O'Connor received a PhD in sociology from Northwestern University and an MEd in secondary education from Boston College. Her research examines the role of family and community in education with a focus on the intersection of families and formal education environments. She is particularly interested in understanding how community and familial caregivers understand and engage with formalized educational spaces and structures. In her prior work, she has taken up these ideas in a variety of ways, including examining the ways families understand and navigate school choice systems, evaluating the ways educators perceive caregivers when they consider discussing issues of race and racial violence in the classroom, and understanding how communities engage with Institutions of Higher Education around pre-college programming for their children. Dr. Delale-O'Connor is currently studying how African American parents frame their engagement and educational practices around in and out-of-school spaces.