• 2022 Finalist for the Pauli Murray Book Prize in Black Intellectual History
• 2007 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Award for Best Anthology of 2007 from the Association of Black Women Historians for Speaking Their Minds: Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions, ed. Kristin Waters and Carol Conaway, Burlington: University of Vermont Press, named to the list of fifty recommended books on black feminism.
• Visiting Scholar, American Antiquarian Society
• Alden Excellence in Teaching Award nomination at Worcester State University
• Women in Print award from the Worcester Women’s History Project

Professional Appointments

• Scholar, Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University, 2007-present
• Professor of Philosophy, 2004 – 2019, Department of Philosophy, Worcester State University. Professor Emerita, 2019 – present.
• Presidential Fellow for Art, Education, and Community, Worcester State University, 2012-2019
• Scholar-in-Residence, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, Fall 2017
• Lecturer, BESS Black Europe Summer School, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2015
• Director of Women’s Studies, Worcester State College,1999-2004
• Assistant Director, Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies, College of the Holy Cross
• Clark University, Worcester, Mass., Visiting Research Professor in Women’s Studies, 1996-1997
• Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Spring 1989.

“Five years old, a motherless child. Fatherless too. Her mother, at least, would have been free. Perhaps her father as well, but none of that mattered now. What mattered was that she was to be sent away to work as a servant in someone’s home, to clean, wait on family members, sweep, clear out the char and ash from the fireplaces, smooth the rough bed linens, scrub and sweep the entry way.” (17) – Kristin Waters, Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought (2021)