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Dr. Bryant is an Assistant professor in the School of Social Work and College of Health and Human Services, and an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Africana Studies.

Prior to joining UNC Charlotte, Dr. Bryant spent more than two decades working in community organizing, social services, and policy reform. Between 2017 and 2022 Dr. Bryant helped lead one the largest criminal justice reform efforts in the history of the state on North Carolinian, and worked with more than forty-five criminal justice agencies across the country to advance more racially and socially just practices.

Dr. Bryant’s research interest include how we experience and make sense of varying conceptions of a just society, each conceptions underlying ontological, epistemological and sociological assumptions, and their corresponding individual, institutional, and social implications.

Education
  • Ph.D. – University of Texas Arlington, Social Work
  • M.S.S.W. – University of Texas Arlington, Social Work
  • M.T.S. – Vanderbilt University, Theological Studies (Western Philosophical Pragmatism)
  • B.A. – Southeast Missouri State University, Cognitive Psychology
Selected Interviews
Selected Publications
  • Bryant, D. & Swafford, T. (2025). Race, Space, and Culture: Exploring the Educational Experiences of African American Doctoral Social Work Students. Journal of Social Work Education, 61(3), 397-408. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2025.2495242.
  • Bryant, D. Swafford, T. (2024). Black Face White Stage: A Subaltern Discourse on Race in the American Theater. Cogent Arts & Humanities Production Team. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2024.2404739.
  • Bryant, D. & Vision, D. (2024) Black Male Bodies in White Female Spaces: Power, Dominance, and Myth in Social Work Education. Journal of Social Work Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2024.2337368. 
  • Bryant, D., & Kolivoski, K. (2021). The Stories We Tell: Examining the Persistence and  Impacts of Normative-Whiteness and White Supremacy Within Social Work  Education. Advances in Social Work, 21(2/3), 481-499. https://doi.org/10.18060/24158
  • Bryant, D. (2021). The Diminishing-Self: African American Men on Academic Probation and the Intersection of Stereotype Threat and Self-concept. Journal of African  American Males in Education (JAAME), 12(1), 1-15. 
  • Lewis, C., Bryant, D., Bryant, A, Williams, N., & Robinson, D. (2017). Improving  educational outcomes of vulnerable children: Starting from the bottom. Chapter: At Risk” Children and Teacher Preparation. San Diego, CA: Plural Publications.
  • Bryant, D. (2016). Black LGBT health in the United States: The intersection of race, gender, and sexual orientation. Chapter: Status-Quo: Intersectionality-Theory, AfroCentric paradigms, and meeting the healthcare needs of Gay and Bisexual African American men. Lanham, MD: Lexington Publications.
  • Shelton, J., Bryant, D., & Curtis, B. (2016). Is Black America ‘disintegrating’?: How class position, age cohort, and immigrant generation shape commitments to racial  solidarity. The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies, 35(1), 88-108.
  • Shelton, J., Curtis, B., & Bryant, D. (2016). We, as a people? Assessing the  consequences of various sources of diversity among African Americans. The PHYLON: Race and Culture, 53(2), 79-99.