Born and reared in Baltimore City, Kennedy McDaniel is a Design Strategist and multi-disciplinary creative driven by empathy and equity. She studied dance at the Baltimore School for the Arts and received her B.A. in Africana Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She obtained her MA in Social Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art. For almost three years, she engaged with the community at the Greenmount West Community Center, where she served as Special Projects and Community Partnerships Manager.
She established BLACCINE in 2016, a self-care zine for Black folks with an emphasis on Black women.
In 2020, she served on the Steering Committee for the National Agenda for Black Girls, where she worked with 100 other Black folks across the nation to establish and sustain an advocacy network by and for Black girls and gender-expansive youth.
In 2022, she served as a fellow with the SecondMuse Capital Future Economy Lab, where she reimagined and redesigned what abundant futures look like for girls, femmes, and gender-expansive youth of color.
She is currently the Design Strategy Manager at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, where she plans and executes design strategy and research across interdisciplinary teams of nurses, researchers, and end users.