Deja Perkins

Deja Perkins is an American urban ecologist. She has spoken out vocally against racism in STEM fields, is a co-organizer of Black Birders Week, and has acted as president of the BlackAFinSTEM collective.

Education and academic career Perkins grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She describes herself as a long-time animal lover. She was introduced to natural resources in high school when her mother enrolled her in "Fishin' Buddies!", a program that aimed to introduce young Chicagoans to science and nature. Perkins originally intended to be a veterinarian, a path she identified as "often the only animal-related career introduced to POC," She completed a Student Conservation Association internship with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. She graduated from Tuskegee in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental, Natural Resources, and Plant Sciences.

Perkins holds a Master of Science in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from North Carolina State University. As a master's student, she was a 2018-2019 USGS Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center Global Change Fellow.

As of 2025, Perkins is a PhD student at NC State's Center for Geospatial Analytics, where she examines the spatial data gaps in environmental participatory projects to engage underserved communities in environmental monitoring and better understand conservation and nature gaps in urban neighborhoods. Some of her current interests are in the intersection of environmental justice and conservation, where she aims to study and take a closer look to how human culture and bias have impacted avian habitat destruction in cities. Some of her latest projects and work are conservation efforts that aim to target climate change in urbanized cities and metropolitan areas. . Perkins is a member of the IDEAL Participatory Science Working group.

Activism and science communication work Perkins is the CEO of Naturally Wild LLC, an organization that "empowers Black-identifying individuals and people of color to explore and engage with the wildlife and natural spaces in their neighborhoods." Founded in 2021, Naturally Wild LLC hosts birding workshops, organizes speaking engagements, and curates specialty programming for other organizations.

Black Birders Week

In May 2020, Perkins co-organized the inaugural Black Birders Week with 19 other young STEM professionals in response to the Central Park birdwatching incident and police brutality against Black Americans. National Wildlife Federation's National Conservation Achievement Award for Young Leaders (2022) U.S. Fish & Wildlife Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Award (2015) She is a former NC State Provost Fellow (2018-2019), and Tuskegee Presidential Scholar (2014-2018).