Dr. Diana Baird N’Diaye is a multidisciplinary artist, folklife researcher, curator and transcontinental arts advocate who combines decades of experience both as a researcher and curator of African and African diaspora expressive culture. She considers her teaching as a vital aspect of her participatory art practice. N’Diaye’s art training began with sewing and needlework instruction from her Caribbean great aunts; In high school she became a student of African American couturiere Zelda Wynn Valdes, and worked as a mender in her mother’s dry cleaning store.