SELECTED AWARDS, ACCOLADES, and CERTIFICATIONS

2024
The Courage Fund Award[1]
Director’s Residency Fellowship/Visiting Scholar, The Collegeville Institute
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher Training Program at Brown University[2]

2023
Indigenous Tools for Living Training, Certificate of Completion
The Garden Initiative for Black Women’s Religious Activism’s Mentorship Program
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Certificate of Completion of 8-week course
Visiting Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, Morgan State University
Spider Weave Flow Fund of the Kindle Project
Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Authorization in partnership with Sounds True and the University of California’s Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

2022
Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness and Advanced Trauma Sensitive Minfulness Certification
Philadelphia High School for Girls Distinguished Daughters Induction
Inaugural Unicorn Authors’ Changemaker Authors Cohort

2020
Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Anthology
Soros Media Fellowship[3]
The Power of Awareness Certificate from the Awareness Training Institute in association with the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

2019
Breakthrough U.S. - Activist Impact Award

2018
Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award for Independent Scholars, Contingent or Community College Faculty (American Studies Association’s Committee on Gender and Sexuality Studies)
Visiting Scholar, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania (2018-2020)

2017
Black Women’s Blueprint Human Rights Defender Award
36th Annual Rachel B. Noel Distinguished Visiting Professorship, Metropolitan State University of Denver

2016      
Fellow, The Ortner Center on Violence and Abuse (2016-2020)
Visiting Scholar, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania (2016-2018)
Attendee, the first "United State of Women" White House Summit
Just Beginning Collaborative, NoVo Fellowship (2016-2019)
Sterling Brown ’22 Visiting Professor of Africana Studies, Williams College

2014     
Erma Taylor O’Brien Distinguished Guest Professorship, Scripps College

2013     
Co-Recipient, with Staceyann Chinn and Fadzai Muparutsa (Coalition of African Lesbians), Black Women’s Blueprint’s Revolutionary Women Speaking the Unspeakable Award

2012
Contingent Faculty, Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, Temple University (2012-2015)

2011     
NO! The Rape Documentary included in Ford Foundation’s JustFilms online archive

2010     
Artist-in-Residence, Emporia State University
Co-Recipient, with Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, Scarritt-Bennett Center’s Ann L. Reskovac Courage Award

2009     
Artist-in-Residence, Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, University of Chicago

2008     
Eighth Annual Philadelphia Black Gay Pride’s “Legend Award”
India International Women’s Film Festival “Best Documentary Award”

[1] Ms. Simmons is one of the recipients of the inaugural Courage Fund Award. This biannual award was co-founded by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kamilah Forbes, Salamishah Tillet, Ph.D. and Scheherazade Tillet of A Long Walk Home, Inc., and Ted Bunch and Tony Porter of A Call to Men, Inc. https://youtu.be/QJZJYHdgtJQ?si=3jra0dA0XqPLqH9v

[2] Ms. Simmons is part of the first fully funded cohort of 40-individuals in the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Teacher Training program at Brown University who have a demonstrated track record of serving historically marginalized communities in the Mindfulness field.

[3] In Fall 2020, Ms. Simmons was one of 19 Soros Media and Justice Fellows selected from a pool of 500 applicants.

[4] In December 2005, Ms. Simmons was one of twelve women from a pool of over 200 to receive the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award recognizing her work using video as a tool for community transformation.