Dr. Tia Jackson-Truitt is the Principal and Founder of Ask Dr. Tia, LLC,  a consulting group that provides organizational strategic planning, crisis management, education and training, and leadership coaching to a host of national clients and organizations. She is currently the Director of Staff and Community Engagement (and the former Inaugural Chief Diversity Officer) at the Penn Museum.

In this role, she focuses on organizational change management, community engagement, inclusive hiring practices, training and professional development, and staff engagement programs. While she has been a key consultant, thought partner, and advocate for her colleagues, she is most proud of the community engagement work that focuses on strengthening relationships with our Philadelphia neighbors.

Prior to this role, she served for over 12 years in progressive leadership roles at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, the largest and most diverse STEM institution in the country. She worked as the Director of Education & Training, where she provided training sessions to 2,000 faculty, staff and students.

She implemented federally funded pipeline programs for diverse students as Associate Director of the Center for Engineering Education and Diversity; and served as the Principal Empowerment Officer of the GRIOT Employee Resource Group, where she provided community-building and professional development programs for over 800 African American staff and their allies.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Delaware, a PhD in Counseling and Student Personnel Services from the University of Georgia and is a proud alumna of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice, where she earned a master’s degree in social work. Her entire career has been guided by her favorite Nelson Mandela quote “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”