Dr. Francesca D’Amico-Cuthbert is a multi-disciplinary creative, educator and award-winning historian of American and Canadian Hip Hop culture, the creative industries, and the music marketplace. She currently serves as Chief Research Officer at the Hip Hop Education Center where she leads the “Fresh, Bold, So Def” initiative which documents and preserves the contributions and achievements of women in Hip Hop culture across and beyond the United States through the development of research and Hip Hop methods, the curation of archives, and the development of educational tools and curricula. In 2024, Francesca served as the project manager for “A Great Day In Toronto Hip Hop” – a history-making photo capturing 103 individuals and five generations of Toronto Hip Hop culture – which was showcased at “The Culture: Hip-Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century” exhibit’s only Canadian stop at the Art Gallery of Ontario. With a Ph.D. in History from York University (2019), Francesca has served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Calgary (2022-2023) and the University of Toronto (2020-2022) where she continues to work as a community-engaged programmer at the Hart House's Hip Hop Education program. To date, her research has been published in: #HipHopEd: The Compilation on Hip Hop Education, The Journal of Canadian Historical Association, Canadian Journal of History, Musicworks, and The Dance Current. As an educator Francesca has taught several courses on the histories of popular culture, art and activism, including “Hip Hop and the City” – York University's longest running course on Hip Hop which explores the culture's evolution from a translocal urban art form to a global commodity.