Professor Dawson has a research focus on the African diaspora and its culture. He has taught seminars on African Spirituality in the Americas and has worked as a photographer, filmmaker, curator, arts administrator, and consultant. He served as curator of photography, film and video at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Director of Special Projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center, and Curatorial Consultant and Director of Education at the Museum for African Art.
He has lectured at Yale, Princeton, New York University, University of Iowa, University of California - Berkeley, University of Texas - Austin, University of Wisconsin - Madison, The New School for Social Research, House of World Cultures - Berlin, Kit Tropenmuseum-Amsterdam and Federal University of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro-Brazil.
As a photographer, he has shown his work in more than 30 exhibitions. He has also curated more than 40 exhibitions, including Harlem Heyday: The Photographs of James Van Der Zee and The Sound I Saw: The Jazz Photographs of Roy DeCarava.
Dawson has been Associated with many prize-winning films, including Head and Heart by James Mannas and Capoeiras of Brazil by Warrington Hudlin.
