Donovan LivingstonSpeaker and Booking Agent Information

Donovan Livingston, Ph.D., is an award-winning educator, spoken word poet, public speaker, and Chapel Hill’s 2025-2026 Poet Laureate. Livingston holds a B.A. in History from UNC Chapel Hill, master’s degrees from Columbia and Harvard, and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership & Cultural Foundations from UNC Greensboro. He serves as Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Music and Director of College Thriving at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2016, his Harvard Graduate School of Education convocation address, “Lift Off,” went viral, garnering over 13 million views and widespread media coverage. The poem powerfully addressed themes of equity, resilience, and education, and was later published in the book “Lift Off” (2017).  His work blends hip-hop, spoken word, and social justice to foster student success, a sense of belonging, and cultural empowerment in higher education.