Sami Schalk

[1] She was previously an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University at Albany, SUNY.

In 2019 she started the campaign #twerkwithlizzo, combining fun with larger issues relating to racism, sexism and fatphobia as a form of "pleasure activism".

[3] She twerked onstage with Janelle Monáe on the Age of Pleasure tour in Indianapolis, Indiana, on September 10, 2023.

[4] She talked with Jonathan Van Ness on his Getting Curious podcast in an episode from October 26, 2022, about Black disability politics.

[15][16] In 2018, she published a monograph titled Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction.