Nyaradzai is originally from Zimbabwe. Before coming to CIE in 2014 she was active in a number of educational programs. She volunteered at Mashambanzou Care Trust, a not-for-profit organization in Harare, where she contributed to community education programs that empowered youths with practical life skills and promoted positive behavioral change. Specifically, the program encouraged girls, who were the majority of high school drop-outs, to take greater control and interest in their health and welfare.
She also volunteered with The Brick Project Foundation, where together with private high school girls, she assisted women at an informal settlement on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, to export handmade paper products outside Zimbabwe to support HIV/AIDS orphans.
Later she worked with women in both rural and urban Zimbabwe advocating for women’s empowerment issues. Her last job was at the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN), an information based women’s organization committed to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Over a period of 5 years she helped train women in rural communities on various issues including sexual and reproductive health and water and sanitation. She has also led various development research and evaluation projects in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Swaziland, Kenya, and the United States.
After completing her Ph.D. in September 2020, Nyaradzai joined the Instructional Design, Engagement, and Support (IDEAS) team at UMass Amherst. As an Education Specialist in faculty development and instructional design, she provides training support to faculty and instructors on using technology to enhance inclusive, collaborative, and engaged learning for diverse student populations.
Additionally, as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant, she works collaboratively with organizations to promote more equitable, diverse, inclusive, and just workplaces. Nyaradzai continues to do research in education and public health, working collaboratively with low-income and underserved communities to inform development programming.
Nyaradzai is an Afro-feminist scholar, whose research focuses on the multi-dimensional aspects of education and health equity. A core part of her research examines the education and public health experiences of underrepresented and historically marginalized populations in the United States and Sub-Saharan Africa within a social justice framing. She employs a decolonial feminist and multi-disciplinary lens in her work, as a recognition that the fields of education and health are complex and non-linear. [4-23]
Email: nchangamire@umass.edu