Keidra Chaney

Program Director | She/Her

Keidra Chaney is a journalist, essayist, narrative strategist, and accessibility advocate based in Chicago.. 

Her writing, critical essays and scholarship explores how pop culture and social technology shapes identity and build community. Her writing has been featured in The Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Reader, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Uncanny Magazine, Prism, Time Out, and Paste. After working at the award-winning Clamor Magazine as a personal essay editor. Later she worked for the Citizen Engagement Lab’s Cultural Pulse Project, connecting nonprofits with online culture change organizers, and National Network of Abortion Funds as a digital engagement and accessibility strategist. 

From 2008 to 2020 she was the publisher and co-founder of The Learned Fangirl, a frequently-cited cultural studies and pop culture publication.

Keidra has been interviewed about media and pop culture for Chicago Public Radio, WGN Radio in Chicago and  KPCC Radio in Southern California. She has spoken at conferences including the Experience Music Project Pop Conference, and the Media in Transition conference at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  She is a past adjunct instructor at DePaul University and Northwestern University.

Keidra is a 2024 Emerge Fellow at the Longmore Institute on Disability, at San Francisco State University where she is working on a digital archive project that amplifies the impact of Black disabled women's activism.

Keidra was a 2020 Leadership Institute Fellow at Disability Lead, served as a 2021 member of the Borealis Philanthropy Disability Inclusion Fund Grantmaking Committee, and is on the 2023-2026 Fulbright Specialist Roster. She was named a 2024 “Notable Black Leader”  by Crain’s Chicago Business. She is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) from the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP).