Brenda J. Allen PhD

Brenda J. Allen (Ph.D., Howard University) is the Allen BrandaVice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus. She also is a Professor of Communication and she serves as Master Mentor of the Tenure Track Faculty Mentoring Program at the university. Her research and teaching areas are organizational communication, diversity, and critical pedagogy. Among her numerous publications is a groundbreaking book entitled Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity. She was recruited from Howard University to the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1989 as an Assistant Professor.

Since then, she has been promoted to Full Professor, and she has served as a Department Chair and Associate Dean. She assumed her recent role as Chief Diversity Officer in August of 2012. In addition to performing her duties at the University, she presents keynote speeches and conducts workshops and consultations on a range of topics, including self-empowerment, diversity, strategic planning, presentational speaking, and teamwork. Most notable among these are EmpowHERment workshops, which she presents nationally to a wide range of women in diverse contexts.