Dr. Sybol Anderson is Director of Diversity in Research Programs at National Medical Fellowships (NMF), where she leads innovative initiatives to promote equity in clinical research. A social and political philosopher by training, she brings to her work deep insight into contemporary challenges of inclusive community development. This has been her passion and a central part of her career for nearly 20 years.

Anderson earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, becoming the 19th African-American woman to earn a doctorate in philosophy in the US. As Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, she taught courses in ethics, race, and 17th/18th-century philosophy. She also co-founded and directed the DeSousa-Brent Scholars Program, an academic and leadership program for first-generation, low-income, and other students from groups underrepresented in higher education. The DeSousa-Brent concept and design, rooted in Anderson’s philosophical work on recognition, combines increased academic rigor, leadership development, and support to accelerate student success. Program alumni have earned advanced degrees from Oxford University, Columbia University, and other prestigious institutions, and are excelling in professions internationally. In 2013 the Maryland General Assembly voted unanimously to establish the state-funded DeSousa-Brent Scholars Completion Grant to increase program
enrollment.

Anderson has served as Executive Director of Equity & Inclusive Diversity at the College of Southern Maryland and as inaugural Chief Diversity Officer at Loyola University New Orleans. Earlier, as Senior Program Manager and Senior Consultant for the NMF Primary Care Leadership Program, she oversaw two national service-learning and research scholarship programs for medical, law, and graduate health professions students, designed to increase diversity in the health professions and to improve health outcomes for the medically underserved.

Anderson’s publications include Hegel’s Theory of Recognition: From Oppression to Ethical Liberal Modernity; with Robert Bernasconi, Race and Racism in Continental Philosophy; and with Ellen K. Feder and Karmen MacKendrick, A Passion for Wisdom: Readings in Western Philosophy on Love and Desire. Her awards include the President’s Lucille Clifton Award (St. Mary’s College of Maryland), Homer L. Dodge Award for Excellence in Teaching, Henry C. Welcome Fellowship of the Maryland State Higher Education Commission, and Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship.

Anderson is also a co-founder of The Spirit of Jazz & Democracy and The Spirit of Innovation & Freedom, ensembles of musicians, artists, and scholars who apply lessons from jazz and other arts to promote inclusive democracy and the mindset of innovation.