Castel Sweet, PhD – embedded sociologist. engaged scholar. avid traveler.

Castel Sweet, PhD is a practitioner-scholar, community builder, and embedded sociologist dedicated to fostering transformative social change through place-based engagement and storytelling. Rooted in the intersections of community, culture, and race, her work seeks to cultivate self-sustaining communities by honoring lived experience, co-creating knowledge, and centering the wisdom already present in place. She draws inspiration from Ella Baker’s belief that “strong communities do not need strong leaders,” but rather, the capacity to lead themselves. With a Ph.D. in Sociology, Castel has led and collaborated on numerous community-driven initiatives that integrate research with action to build collective power and deepen democratic engagement.

Her journey into community-engaged work began in Memphis, Tennessee, where she witnessed firsthand the strength of communities mobilizing their own resources, relationships, and creativity to meet local needs. That experience revealed an enduring truth — the solutions are already in the community. Castel began to imagine what becomes possible when those communities are not only seen, but supported in growing their capacity to sustain and scale their own visions for change. In academic spaces, she found herself questioning the distance between theory and practice, and choosing to work in the space between. These questions pushed her beyond the classroom and into community, where knowledge is co-created, stories matter, and transformation begins with relationship. Seeking answers, she turned toward grassroots spaces where history lives in stories, knowledge is embodied, and action is grounded in care. Places where stories are honored, relationships are sacred, and change begins from the ground up.

Today, Castel brings that ethos into everything she does. As Director of the Center for Community Engagement and Assistant Professor of Practice in Community Engagement at the University of Mississippi she works to cultivate meaningful community-university partnerships rooted in reciprocity. Her approach is relational, strategic, and unapologetically people-centered. She is also the co-founder of Blue Glass Jar Farmacy, a plant-based, family-run skincare brand she launched with her mother and grandmother. The venture reflects her commitment to wellness, sustainability, and intergenerational healing and her belief that our bodies, like our communities, deserve care grounded in love and legacy. Whether she’s leading collaborative initiatives, producing community-centered films, or holding space for deep listening and truth-telling, Castel remains committed to one core principle: that real change happens when we honor the knowledge already living in our communities, and walk alongside one another in pursuit of something better. Our stories are the soil and from them, something liberatory can grow.