Colombian-American Futurist Martha Diaz (MD) is an award-winning social entrepreneur, media producer, educator, archivist, and curator committed to advancing social justice and equity through Hip-Hop culture, media, technology, and storytelling. In 2010, MD founded the Hip-Hop Education Center, where she serves as the Executive Director, Chief Curator, and Archivist. Over the past 30 years, she has traversed the Hip-Hop entertainment industry, public arts and education sectors, and academia, connecting and bridging initiatives across public and private cultural and educational institutions.
A highly accomplished global education thought leader, community organizer, and mentor, MD possesses substantial organizational, interpersonal, networking, and event-planning-production skills. Through her exhibitions and publications, including research reports, books, and curricula, she has chronicled and archived Hip-Hop history to preserve its cultural value and memory. In 2002, MD founded the highly acclaimed Hip-Hop Odyssey (H2O) International Film Festival, the first of its kind, and co-founded the Hip-Hop Association. She curated the first Hip-Hop film series presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and served as a guest curator at the Museum of the Moving Image and The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. MD has produced and consulted on numerous media projects, including “Where My Ladies At?” by Leba Haber Rubinoff (2007), “Black August: A Hip-Hop Concert” by dream hampton (2010), “Nas: Time Is Illmatic” by One9 (2014), “Dear Mama” by Allen Hughes (2023), and Living Proof: Dr. Khalid’s Black History Mobile Museum by Tony “Mr. Wave” Wesley (2024).
A graduate of New York University’s Gallatin School for Individualized Study and Tisch School of the Arts Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program, MD has worked on archival projects with Parkwood Entertainment (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter), the Tupac Shakur Estate, Ralph McDaniels Video Music Box Collection, The Paley Center for Media, and A&E’s “Hip-Hop Treasures” TV Series, among others. She has taught at NYU and Virginia State University (VSU) and was a visiting scholar at Virginia Union University. She is also served as an advisor for The Hip Hop Museum, Cornell Hip-Hop Collection, and Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archives. MD’s fellowships include serving as a Senior Fellow at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation – National Museum of American History, A’Lelia Bundles Community Scholar at Columbia University, Nasir Jones Fellow at Harvard University, Inaugural Fellow at the Center for Creative & Entertainment Arts at VSU, and MacArthur Civic Media Senior Fellow at the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab.
