Mackayla Forde
Mackayla Forde, aka ‘RED MEDUSA’ is a poetic-academic and researcher making unique contributions to academia, poetry, and public health. She is a LISS-DTP PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London’s Global Public Health Unit within the Wolfson Institute of Population Health. Her groundbreaking research is the first of its kind in British history, combining poetic inquiry with ‘traditional’ qualitative methods to explore Black women’s relationship with poetry in managing anxiety and depression, particularly during the first wave of lockdowns of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Mackayla sits on the board of editors for the International Journal of Poetry Therapy and is an advisor on the board for the Black Arts Hub CIC in Medway, Kent. She is a strong advocate for the use of decolonial research methods and Black feminist epistemology as a means of addressing and dismantling the ongoing harms of coloniality present in current global public health policy, research and discourse.
As a consultant in poetic inquiry for decolonial research, her practice extends to assisting organisations in centring the needs of the communities they serve through utilising poetry as a vehicle for personal and collective introspection and transformation.
Outside of academia, Mackayla delivers poetry workshops to students in secondary schools and for organisations in and around London, encouraging women and girls to reclaim their agency and voices through verse.
News featuring Mackayla
Rooted & Rising – Episode 2
Episode 2 of Rooted & Rising explored storytelling, visibility, mental health and the systems shaping Black women’s health. Award-winning journalist Melissa Sigodo spoke about the devastating impact of Black women being overlooked in mainstream media, including...