Donald Easton-Brooks was born on a street in Port Author Texas and grew up in Houston, Texas. He attended Booker T. Washington High School. The historical school start was first named "Colored High," as it was the only high school for Blacks in Houston.

Donald Easton-Brooks Ph.D. first attended the University of Texas at El Paso Miners on a football scholarship. After a knee injury in his junior year, he transferred to Greenville University, where he earned a sociology degree. At Greenville, he earned all-conference honors at outside linebacker and cornerback. He was later the first football and first Black introduced in the Greenville University Hall of Frame.

After earning his degree, Dr. Easton-Brooks moved to Denver, where he worked as a counselor before earning his master's degree in Early Childhood Special Education, emphasizing Multicultural Family studies at the University of Colorado at Denver. There Dr. Easton-Brooks also earned his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership with an emphasis on Educational Research and Culturally Responsive Practice. His dissertation was on the impact of Wealth on the Academic Achievement of Black students. After receiving his doctorate, Dr. Easton-Brooks went on to produce award-winning research and teach and create programs to combine the academic challenges of minoritized communities by using quantitative methods to show the impact of systematic barriers play in the role of these students.

Dr. Easton-Brooks has over 100 scholarship articles, monographs, book chapters, books, and presentations. His research has been cited on educational initiatives and policy efforts in the US and countries such as Africa, Australia, Germany, and New Zealand. The impact of his work has led to national and international interviews on television, radio talk shows, newspapers, and parenting magazines. He currently services on the editorial board of the Urban Education journal.

Dr. Easton-Brooks was instrumental in creating and chairing the Oregon Educator Equity Advisory Group, which assists the state, universities, and school districts developing a culturally-responsive educator workforce. Based on his research, Dr. Easton-Brooks helped create the Oregon Teacher Pathway and South Dakota Teacher Pathway programs, designed to promote equity in education by diversifying the educator workforces and developing culturally responsive teachers. To date, these programs have reached more than 400 high school students.

Dr. Easton-Brooks has served in leadership and dean roles at institutions such as the University of Nevada Reno, University of South Dakota, University of Connecticut, and the University of North Texas. He helped lead some of these universities to national recognition. His leadership has been recognized on the statewide, nationally, and re-warded on the international level. In these roles, Dr. Easton-Brooks has managed budgets of over $20M, has raised nearly $10M in donor funds and supervised upwards of 400 employees.

Dr. Easton-Brooks has been elected to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) national board and the executive board of The Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions (CADRE). He also has a member dean of the Learning and Education Academic Research Network (LEARN), a group of deans from top research universities who meet with national legislators to promote educational research's continued support. He has also been awarded twice for his leadership by been recognized at the International Urban Education Conference. He has also served as a mentor for the Committee on the Senior Scholars of Black Education (CSCE) through the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Beyond the field of education, Dr. Easton-Brooks serves as a consultant and conducts workshops for businesses, non-profits, healthcare, government agencies, etc., on culturally responsive practices, Diversity, Equity, and Diversity, and Anti-Racism.