Shawna Felkins is a graduate teaching assistant in the Sociology department at the University of Kentucky. She holds a BA in English from Western Kentucky University and a MA in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi, where she also served as a graduate teaching assistant at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and was awarded the Graduate Writing Fellowship to serve as an in-department, discipline-specific writing center for undergraduates.

She utilizes a student-centered pedagogy that focuses on individual students needs while building empathy on the path to completing course objectives. In 2017, she was awarded the College of Arts and Science Outstanding Teaching Award for her work in the GWS classroom. She has experience teaching introductory gender and women's studies courses as well as composition and communication courses.

She currently lives in Lexington with her cat, Luna, and her dog, Lily.