Dr. Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn is a people leader, speaker, trainer, and writer.

 
 

Sarah-SoonLing was born in Bangkok, Thailand into a mixed-race Malaysian Chinese and white American family. A classic “third culture kid,” she grew up moving between various East and Southeast Asian countries and the Washington DC area. Sarah moved to the Deep South in 2009, and she has now lived there longer than anywhere else. Her experiences first as a classroom teacher and later as a teacher educator inform her beliefs about the role that education can and must play in the realization of social justice.

She owes very much to her ancestors.

Sarah spent most of her years in the classroom teaching third and fourth grade. In 2011 she was Teacher of the Year at Lakeside Upper Elementary School in Lake Village, Arkansas. As a professional trainer and coach, Sarah’s areas of focus have included workplace cultures, leadership, communication skills, and inclusion and belonging. Sarah is a LinkedIn Learning Instructor and the author of Exclusion and the Chinese American Story.

Sarah has a B.A. from Haverford College, an M.A. in Social Justice and Education from University College London’s Institute of Education, and an Ed.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

 

Ed.D.
Johns Hopkins University
2020

M.A., Social Justice and Education
Institute of Education
University College London
2012

B.A., English
Haverford College
2009

 
 
Discounted rates available for events organized by Employee Resource Groups

Lecture and workshop topics include:

Belonging and cultural competence in the workplace

Tenets and strategies for workplace culture

Inclusive interpersonal and communication skills

Asian American identity and history

Leadership and management skills

Understanding and resisting stereotypes

The model minority myth and its relationship to anti-Blackness

Histories of race and racism in the United States

Professional learning design and facilitation

Online teaching and learning

The television series Survivor

 
 

Past speaking engagements, including conference presentations, keynote addresses, panel appearances, and workshops include: 

  • the Association of Boarding Schools
  • Bark
  • Best Egg
  • Brilliant Earth
  • EmbraceRace
  • GE Aerospace
  • GitHuB
  • the Institute for Racial Equity in Literacy
  • LinkedIn
  • Microsoft
  • the National Council for the Social Studies
  • the National Council of Teachers of English
  • the National Association for Media Literacy Education
  • Sage
  • Sumo Logic
  • the Society for Asian Scientists and Engineers
  • the Society for Research in Child Development
  • Union Pacific
  • the US Department of Commerce
  • the US Patent and Trade Organization
  • and more

Sarah will work with you to create a learning experience tailored to your needs