Marcia Chatelain is a scholar of race and ethnicity in America and a national speaker on race, gender, and ethnicity. In 2016, the Chronicle of Higher Education named her a Top Influencer in academia in recognition of her social media campaign #FergusonSyllabus, which implored educators to facilitate discussions about the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. She gave a keynote address at the 2019 Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.