Zelaika Hepworth Clarke

Zelaika Hepworth Clarke, PhD, MSW, MEd, is an African-centered social worker, anti-colonial sexuality educator, cultural and clinical sexologist, decolonial eroticologist, decolonizing autoethnographer, and sexosopher. Dr. Hepworth Clarke is the first Jamerican (Jamaican-American) to earn three degrees in Sexuality Studies from accredited universities in the United States: a Bachelor of Arts from NYU in Sexuality, Culture, and Oppression (2007); a Master of Education in Human Sexuality (2012); and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Human Sexuality (2015) from the Center for Human Sexuality Studies at Widener University.

Dr.Hepworth Clarke is a graduate of the National Academy for African-Centered Social Work, the International School of Transnational Decolonial Black Feminism in Brazil, and the Decolonizing Knowledge and Power Summer School in Barcelona. Dr. Hepworth Clarke co-founded the decolonial sexuality studies program at Goddard College and co-created the Decolonial Sexual Attitude Restructuring/Reassessment (D-SAR), a sexuality training program focused on deconstructing settler-colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy in sex, gender, and relationships.

Dr. Hepworth Clarke is committed to increasing sexual multiepistemic literacy, relational wellbeing, erotic sovereignty, and sensual awareness. They specialize in working with people of the African diaspora, as well as kinky, non-monogamous, queer, gender-expansive, and erotically marginalized communities. Dr. Hepworth Clarke’s approach is grounded in anti-erotophobic, anti-oppressive, healing-centered and decolonial methodologies.