Professor Lyrical is an artist and educator known for using the positive aspects of Hip Hop culture to empower citizens to self-advocate for socioeconomic change. Equally compelling is his "side-hustle" as an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of the District of Columbia, a public land-grant HBCU in Washington DC, where he also directs faculty development for its associate programs within its embedded community college.
A regularly contracted public speaker, performer and faculty developer, Dr. Plourde is also a QuSTEAM Subject Matter Expert. The QuSTEAM initiative (Convergent undergraduate education in Quantum Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) is developing a transformative and convergent undergraduate curriculum to provide a national education model for the emerging field of quantum information science and engineering and is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator. Similarly, Dr. Plourde is also part of a grant funded UDC team developing the first Associates of Science degree in Quantum Information Science (QIS).
As a master-craftsman lyricist and award-winning rapper and spoken word poet, Pro has consistently published records in heavy rotation among college/mix-show stations for three different groups (X-Caliber, Invasion, and most recently with ProQuo) and has had music placed in various movies and numerous advertisement campaigns. Lyrical has competed in some of the most prestigious rap battles in history (Battle for World Supremacy, Zulu Nation NYC, Pitch & Flow DC, Boston Super Bowl Battles, etc.), including winning the Pitch & Flow Battle at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (a battle which paired “dope, socially-conscious emcees with green entrepreneurs and corporations in accordance with UN sustainability goals”).
