Jason Keist is an Adult Learning and Workforce Education Research Associate in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on centers the lives experiences of Black men ages 25-45 years attending 2-year public institutions. Specifically, Jason is interested in how these men’s raced, aged, and gendered experiences shape how they navigate to, through, and out of the community college to obtain credentials of value to secure upwards social mobility..
Before starting his career in education, Jason trained as a social worker. During his MSW practicum, he was awarded a Consolidated Social Service Grant through the city of Urbana, Illinois to create a youth program entitled the Indy Media & Arts Lab, housed within the Independent Media Center (Urbana). He started his career as an educator in 2010 as an Adult Education GED preparation instructor at Parkland College. During that time, he gained experience in student advising, program development and supervision (Early School Leaver Transition Program), college/career prep. instruction, and teaching computer basics to adult learners. He later served as a tenure-stream faculty member and occasionally teaches in an adjunct instructor in Sociology and Social Work at Parkland College. Recently Jason transitioned from the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to his role at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education.
Jason is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he also earned an M.S.W., and he holds a B.A from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.