Brenda L. (Townsend) Walker, Ph.D, JD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of South Florida. Her scholarship centers on the disciplinary practices to which African American learners are disproportionately subjected, issues around ethics, power, and privilege, and strategies for African American students with academic gifts and talents. She co-authored a constructive behavior management text and has several book chapters on schooling issues related to African American children. In 1995, she developed Project PILOT, the first of several initiatives that prepares African American men for urban special education teaching careers. As a result, 31 African American men have graduated and are teaching children with special needs. She also directs the Chrysalis Program that targets African American women, Hispanic men and women, and European American males to teach urban children with special needs. In addition, Dr. (Townsend) Walker recently became the director of LASER, a national outreach and technical assistance project that enhances the urban school research capacity of faculty and graduate students in minority institutions. More recently, Dr. (Townsend) Walker received university support to open and direct the Center for Action Research on Urban Schools and Effective Leadership, or the CAROUSEL Center.