SOCIAL EQUITY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center
- Senior Research Associate, Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity Director of the Inequality Studies Minor Director of the Global Inequality Research Initiative
Adam Hollowell serves as Senior Research Associate at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and Director of the Inequality Studies Minor at Duke University. He is also the Faculty Director of the Benjamin N. Duke Memorial Scholarship Program and Director of the Global Inequality Research Initiative. An award-winning educator, he teaches ethics and inequality studies across multiple departments at Duke University, including the Kenan Institute for Ethics, the Program in Education, the Department of History, and the Sanford School of Public Policy. He is the co-author, with Jamie McGhee, of You Mean It or You Don't: James Baldwin's Radical Challenge (Broadleaf Books, 2022).
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University
Alejandro Gutierrez-Li is an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. His research belongs to the areas of labor economics and applied microeconomics, with an emphasis on economics of immigration and entrepreneurship. His recent work has analyzed the role of pre-migration work experience of immigrants in their labor market opportunities in the United States, factors affecting Mexico-U.S. migration, the determinants of the farm labor supply, and the economic outcomes of Hispanics, among others. In addition, he is in charge of a new research and outreach program related to agricultural labor in the U.S. Professor Gutierrez-Li regularly interacts with stakeholders and reporters, and has been quoted by outlets like the Wall Street Journal, NBC News, the National Desk, and the Triangle Business Journal. Dr. Gutierrez-Li has lived and worked in different parts of Latin America and the United States, and is fluent in both English and Spanish. He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Job Titles:
- Senior Economist, Joint Economic Committee
Dr. Alfredo A. Romero is the Senior Economist of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress and an associate professor of economics at the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. He has been a member of the Panel of Economic Forecasters of the Wall Street Journal, a member of the Survey of Professional forecasters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and co-founder and CEO of Impact Analytics, an economic consulting firm. His research focuses on the ebb and flow of foreign direct investment and its connections to growth, culture, and inequality; the yield curve and its relationship to unemployment and inflation; and the dynamics of self-employment during recessions. He has been invited to present his research both nationally and internationally and publishes in economics and interdisciplinary journals. From time to time his opinion on labor markets and economic conditions has been sought out by major outlets like Barron's Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Univision, and CNN. He is currently a member of the American Society of Hispanic Economists and a former co-editor of the Hispanic Economic Outlook. In his spare time, he loves to teach his daughters Spanish and programming in BASIC. He received a Ph.D. and a master's in economics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a master's in economics from Texas Tech University, and a baccalaureate in economics from Universidad de las Americas-Puebla, in Mexico.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate and Communications Strategist With the Samuel DuBois Cook Center
Amber Holland serves as a Senior Research Associate and Communications Strategist with the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. She received her communication degree from UNC Greensboro (MA) and will receive her PhD from NC State University in December 2023. In her role with the Cook Center, Amber develops and implements communication and marketing strategies to support Cook Center initiatives and research, translates research into policy briefs and materials for dissemination to various audiences, provides lectures for Cook Center courses, and partners with Cook Center stakeholders and key communication offices for Duke University and Duke University Health System.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Economics at Barnard College
Belinda Archibong is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her research areas include development economics, political economy, economic history and environmental economics with an African regional focus. Her research investigates the role of historical institutions and environment in inequality of access to public services and the development of human capital, particularly in the areas of education and health. Some current research studies the effects of epidemics on gender gaps in human capital investment, the economics of epidemics and vaccination, and the impacts of air pollution from gas flaring on human capital outcomes; with a focus on the ways in which institutions mitigate or exacerbate the impacts of climate change and environment on inequalities around gender and marginalized groups. Other works study the economics of prisons, the effects of protests on taxation and gender gaps in political participation, and the drivers of gender gaps in labor markets in African countries. She is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a faculty affiliate at Columbia University's Center for Development Economics and Policy (CDEP), The Earth Institute at Columbia University, the Institute of African Studies, the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC), and the Center for Environmental Economics and Policy (CEEP), and is currently a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She received a B.A. in Economics/Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from Columbia University. Her CV and further information can also be found on her personal website.
Job Titles:
- Contributor to the Wall Street Journal
Dr. Román earned her BA and MA from Texas Christian University (TCU). Upon graduation, she accepted a position in the U.S. House of Representatives as a staffer for the 16 th Congressional District of Texas, working in both El Paso, Texas, and Washington, D.C. She resigned from this role to serve as campaign director for the incumbent, leading the effort to re-elect the candidate. Following this political experience, Dr. Román combined her knowledge of economy and business to begin a start-up company specializing in data storage, one of the first of its kind and a prescient move into the business world. This enterprise was sold when she relocated to La Paz, Bolivia, where Dr. Román served as Administrative Director of the Electrification for Sustainable Development (ESD) program, a project funded by USAID and implemented by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). This challenging but rewarding experience honed Dr. Román's skills in management, economic development, and logistics.
Dr. Román continued her studies at the London School of Economics, where she received her MPhil in Economic History, focusing her research on Border Studies. Also, during her time in London, Dr. Román worked in two key positions, firstly, as Director of Communications and Publications at the American Chamber of Commerce. In this role, she liaised closely with The American Embassy in London. In her second position, she transitioned to the UK private sector, accepting a position as Director of Publications and Broadcasting for a multimedia start-up that pioneered Internet Protocol (IP) over satellite. Her technical knowledge helped start one of the first groundbreaking live feeds of medical research and procedures and the publication of an international intensive care journal online with interactive content.
Dr. Román relocated back to the U.S. and went into academia, her original passion. Combining her real-world experience with her love of learning, Dr. Román won an award as an innovative educator and passionate advocate for Hispanic youth. She attained the rank of Professor at Palo Alto College, one of the Alamo Colleges in San Antonio, Texas. During a year-long sabbatical in Canada, Dr. Román began her Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario (Western), where she concentrated on the application of Complexity Science to Border Studies. She also taught courses on the encounters between First Nations and Europeans for the Anthropology Department at Western.
Dr. Román has taught at St. Mary's University in San Antonio for 12 years, beginning as an adjunct, and now as a full-time, tenured Assistant Professor in the Economics Department. She teaches introductory and intermediate economics courses along with International Economics and specialist topics such as complexity economics, feminist economics, and courses that focus on the Mexico-U.S. Border.
Dr. Román began Román Economics 2015, a small consulting firm. Her brand of economic analysis and research focuses on combining her strengths as an analyst with extensive real-world experience and particular insight into BIPOC and minority marketplaces.
Dr. Román is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal economic forecasting survey and has published Op-Ed pieces on local topics. She is regularly interviewed by the Spanish-language media on issues of national interest that impact local Spanish-speaking populations. She is a member of numerous academic organizations and is President of the San Antonio Business and Economics Society (SABES).
Job Titles:
- Scholars Summer Research Institute / Minor
I am a JD/MA in History dual degree student at North Carolina Central University. My research has been centered around constitutional law, civil rights, and African American history. As a teaching assistant of Dr. Jim Harper II, I was able to participate in the History of Inequality course by adding a legal perspective to the content, assisting with lectures, and giving constructive feedback to undergraduate students on their work products.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Economics
Camila Morales is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas and a Faculty Affiliate with the Georgia Policy Labs. She is serving as an Early Career Scholar with the Center for Education Efficacy, Excellence, and Equity (E4) at Northwestern University during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years. Dr. Morales studies the impact of immigration policies on the labor market outcomes of young adults, and the efficacy of school-level programs and peer interactions on the academic achievement of immigrants/refugees and English Learners. She received a PhD in Economics from Georgia State University where she worked with the Metro Atlanta Policy Lab for Education.
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Catherine is a freshman majoring in Chemistry hoping to pursue biotech research and is a student-athlete on the track and field team. Catherine participated in the Young Scholars program prior to Duke and researched the effects of black representation on predominately black cities and how mental health impacts recidivism rates in black inmates.
Job Titles:
- Research Professor of Economics and Director of Graduate Studies in Economics, Duke University
Charles Becker (BA, Grinnell; PhD Princeton) joined the Duke faculty in 2003, where he directed the American Economic Association's Summer Program and Minority Scholarship Program (2003-2007). He currently directs the MS program in Economics and Computation run jointly by the Departments of Computer Science and Economics. Becker previously taught at CU-Denver, Vanderbilt, and CU-Boulder. In 2007, he was recognized as a lifetime member of the American Economic Association (AEA) for service to the profession; in 2019 he received the AEA's Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession's mentorship award. He received Duke's equity, inclusion and diversity award in 2008 and graduate faculty mentoring award in 2014.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
Damon Jones is an associate professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. He conducts research at the intersection of three fields: public finance, household finance, and labor economics. Assoc. Prof. Jones has researched topics that include inequality, household financial decision-making, and racial equity, touches on policies such as income tax, the social safety net, social security, retirement and retirement savings, the interaction between employer-provided benefits and labor market outcomes, and economic inequality across racial lines. More recently, he has conducted research on workplace wellness programs, universal basic income, and racial differences in financial outcomes. At Harris, Assoc. Prof. Jones currently teaches a course on public finance and public policy, a course in advanced microeconomics, and a practicum on tax policy and household finance.
Job Titles:
- Professor of International & Public Affairs
- Professor of International and Public Affairs ( SIPA ) and Economics, Columbia Unviersity
Douglas Almond is Professor of International & Public Affairs (SIPA) and Economics at Columbia University in New York, and co-directs the Center for Environmental Economics and policy.
Almond served as a staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration and studied health effects of pollution in China as a Fulbright scholar. He is a visiting professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, founded in 1477, and visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Almond received his BA in Economics from Carleton College in Minnesota and his PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where he is currently a research associate in the Children's and Environment and Energy Economics Programs.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University
Dr. Alberto Ortega is an Assistant Professor at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. He is a public policy scholar with health and social policy research focusing on the well-being of underserved and vulnerable populations. Ortega's earlier work examined educational barriers and inequities faced by racial and ethnic minorities. His current research explores issues surrounding access to health care and social determinants of health outcomes, including substance use, mental health, and mortality resulting from victimization. Dr. Ortega is an Emerging Poverty Scholar at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was also a Resource Center for Minority Aging Research Scientist with USC's Minority Aging Health Economics Research Center, an NSF Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics Fellow, and an American Economic Association Summer Program Fellow and mentor. Dr. Ortega is currently the chair of the communications committee for the American Society for Hispanic Economists (ASHE).
Job Titles:
- Senior Economist of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress
Dr. Alfredo A. Romero is the Senior Economist of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress and an associate professor of economics at the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. He has been a member of the Panel of Economic Forecasters of the Wall Street Journal, a member of the Survey of Professional forecasters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and co-founder and CEO of Impact Analytics, an economic consulting firm. His research focuses on the ebb and flow of foreign direct investment and its connections to growth, culture, and inequality; the yield curve and its relationship to unemployment and inflation; and the dynamics of self-employment during recessions. He has been invited to present his research both nationally and internationally and publishes in economics and interdisciplinary journals. From time to time his opinion on labor markets and economic conditions has been sought out by major outlets like Barron's Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Univision, and CNN. He is currently a member of the American Society of Hispanic Economists and a former co-editor of the Hispanic Economic Outlook. In his spare time, he loves to teach his daughters Spanish and programming in BASIC. He received a Ph.D. and a master's in economics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a master's in economics from Texas Tech University, and a baccalaureate in economics from Universidad de las Americas-Puebla, in Mexico.
Job Titles:
- Chief Strategist and Head of Research, Breman - Asare Holdings Inc
- Economist
Dr. Eric Asare is a skilled economist with a focus on agricultural and applied economics. He holds a doctorate in his profession and is known for his expertise in applied policy, technology adoption, and environmental and resource economics. He has also published more than ten articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is the Chief Strategist and Head of Research for Breman-Asare Holdings Inc. and the founder and chairman of the company. Dr. Asare's leadership and extensive knowledge continue to shape the field of economics and drive the success of his organization.
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Associate Within the Duke Center for the Study of Aging Postdoctoral Research Training Program
Dr. Eric Griffith received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as an MA in psychology from Boston University. He completed his dissertation fieldwork in central Mexico, focusing on the experiences of familial caregivers for people living with Alzheimer's disease. Eric's research interests include biocultural anthropology, dementia, cognitive aging, health disparities, and mixed methods research. As a postdoctoral fellow with the Cook Center, Eric is working on the NIH-funded project "The influence of religion/spirituality on Alzheimer's Disease and its related dementias (ADRD) for African Americans.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor and Health Economist in University of Kentucky 's ( UK ) College of Public Health
- Executive Director of the Murphy Institute at Tulane University
Dr. Joseph Benitez is an assistant professor and health economist in University of Kentucky's (UK) College of Public Health in the Department of Health Management and Policy. He is also a courtesy faculty member in the Department of Economics and UK's Martin School of Public Policy and Administration. Dr. Benitez studies the role of public policy in shaping access to care for medically underserved population with an emphasis on Medicaid policy and Medicaid program design. His current projects focus on the utility of Medicaid coverage as a safety net during unemployment spells and how variation in network characteristics influence access to care within Kentucky's Medicaid population. He has been previously funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study how households use Medicaid during transitional poverty spells and unanticipated periods of joblessness. Dr. Benitez is also to begin work with Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) to study provider network adequacy within and across Kentucky's Medicaid Managed Care (MMC) program. Additionally, Dr. Benitez has ongoing projects to understand the interactive effects between Medicaid eligibility and payment guidelines on health care access, and he worked as a non-residential fellow with KFF's, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation, Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured team for the 2022-2023 academic year.
Gary Hoover is the Executive Director of the Murphy Institute at Tulane University. He is also a professor of economics. Dr. Hoover is an affiliate professor of law.
From 2015 until 2020 he was a President's Associates Presidential Professor and the Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Oklahoma.
Dr. Hoover received his PhD in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1998. Since then, he has published numerous scholarly research papers, book chapters, and reviews on topics concerning income redistribution/poverty, political economy, and ethics in the economics profession. Dr. Hoover is the co-chair of the American Economic Association Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession. From 2022 to 2023 he was the president the Sothern Economic Association. He is on the advisory board of the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. He is also on the selection committee for the National Science Foundation Alan T. Waterman Award.
Dr. Hoover is the founding and current editor of the Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy. He has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Hoover is a network member at the Center for Economic Studies & ifo Institute in Munich, Germany. He has also been a guest professor at the Universities of Hannover and Konstanz in Germany, the University of Vienna in Austria and X'ian University in China.
Job Titles:
- Faculty Affiliate and Professor of Human and Organizational Development
Rev. Dr. Sandra L. Barnes is an ordained minister and professor with joint appointments in the Department of Human and Organizational Development and the School of Divinity at Vanderbilt University. Her areas of research and teaching include sociology of religion; inequality, as it pertains to race, class, and gender; urban sociology; statistics; and African American studies. Dr. Barnes' most recent book, Kings of Mississippi: Race, Religious Education, and the Making of a Middle Class Black Family in the Segregated South, delivers a socio-ecological study of a rural Black farming family that rose to the middle class-and an analysis of the elements and institutions that enabled the family's success.
Dr. Solomon Hughes is an instructor and faculty affiliate at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. He completed his Ph.D. in Higher Education Research and Policy Studies at the University of Georgia's Institute of Higher Education, and both his M.A. and B.A. at the University of California at Berkeley. His teaching and research focus broadly on college athletics, academic achievement, race, collegiate athletics policy, and activism.
Elizabeth Iris Rivera Rodas is an economist with expertise in urban educational policy. She holds a joint Ph.D. in Economics and Urban Educational Policy from Rutgers University, a M.S. in Social Research from Hunter College at the City University of New York and a B.A. in Economics from Barnard College, Columbia University. Dr. Rivera Rodas is an Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods and Sociology of Education in the Department of Educational Foundations in the College of Education and Human Services at Montclair State University.
Dr. Rivera Rodas's scholarly interests involve the economics of urban education, residential and school segregation, and structural educational inequities by race and ethnicity. Her current research, which is supported by a Racial Equity Research Grant from the Spencer Foundation, uses stratification economics to identify some of the structural and intentional processes within mathematics tracking for Latinx high school students and the impact these processes have on postsecondary enrollment, and completion in the STEM fields.
Job Titles:
- Educational Equity and Policy Specialist
- Program Coordinator for the Hank & Billye Suber Aaron Young Scholars Program
Erica Roberson Phillips recently graduated from Duke with her Master's Degree in Educational Equity, Public Policy, and Reform. Erica's Master's Project entitled "Yes, ‘All Students Can be Taught How to be Smart': How Anti-Bias Teacher Preparation Paired with Scaffolding of Rigorous Curriculum Can Eradicate the Achievement Gap" earned the distinction of "exemplary," with Dr. Darity serving as her advisor.
Erica comes to The Cook Center with previous experience as a public school teacher. Working in both Durham Public Schools and Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools, Erica believes in developing the whole child, balancing culturally-responsive teaching methods with maintaining high academic expectations. Her educational passions align with removing barriers for all people to reach their fullest potential, through community organizing and policy changes.
In her role of Educational Equity and Policy Specialist, Erica serves as the Program Coordinator for the Hank & Billye Suber Aaron Young Scholars Program, assists in teaching the Global Inequality Research Institute courses, works in the Education Policy Working Group, and is the Project Director of a federal grant studying the benefits and inequities of gifted programming.
Job Titles:
- Research and Administrative Staff
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Sociology
- Faculty Affiliate and Associate Professor of Sociology
Jean Beaman is Associate Professor of Sociology, with affiliations with Black Studies, Political Science, Feminist Studies, Global Studies, and the Center for Black Studies Research, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously, she was faculty at Purdue University and held visiting fellowships at Duke University and the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Her research is ethnographic in nature and focuses on race/ethnicity, racism, international migration, and state violence in both France and the United States. She is author of Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France (University of California Press, 2017), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Her current book project is on suspect citizenship and belonging, anti-racist mobilization, and activism against state violence in France. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University. She is also an Associate Editor of the journal, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power and a Corresponding Editor for the journal Metropolitics/Metropolitiques. She is the Co-PI for the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant, "Race, Precarity, and Privilege: Migration in a Global Context" for 2020-2022 and a visiting fellow at Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences for 2022-2023.
Job Titles:
- Member of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society
Driven by his desire to teach and inspire, Mount Olive, North Carolina native, Jim C. Harper, II, has spent over two decades sharing the knowledge needed to grow and succeed through lessons of the past. After his service in the United States Marine Corps, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree and Master of Arts degree from North Carolina Central University and Ph.D. from Howard University. He has been employed at North Carolina Central University for over 20 years and is the recipient of multiple teaching awards including the University of North Carolina System's Board of Governors Excellence in Teaching Award and the NCCU Excellence in Teaching Award. He was selected as the Colonel Charles Young Trailblazer Award recipient which recognizes distinguished individuals who have demonstrated outstanding service and commitment to the community, leadership, and youth. Currently he serves as Chair and Professor of History at North Carolina Central University.
Dr. Harper's research interests include African American and African education and independence movements in the 20 th century. He has published one book, Western Educated Elites in Kenya, 1900-1963: The African American Factor and served as lead editor of Topics in the African Diaspora. He has published several peer-reviewed journal articles, and book chapters. He is currently working on a co-authored manuscript on the History of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. which will be published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2023. He has also completed several Public History community engaged research projects including a Durham Beginnings, Digital Mapping Project, and a Durham Memories Oral History Project.
Dr. Harper is a member of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society and Pi Gamma Mu Social Science Honor Society as well as the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. He is an active member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) where he served as the National Vice President for Programs (2016-2018). He is also a member of the American Historical Association and the Oral History Association.
Dr. Harper is committed to mentoring people both at the university and in the greater Durham community. He uses his research to inspire students and the public's awareness and interest in history. No matter the outlet he uses, his hope is that every student can find confidence in their abilities. At the same time and while finding inspiration from an Aristotle quote, he helps students to realize that "excellence is not an act, but rather a lifelong habit" that should be used in accomplishing all of their goals.
Jose Bucheli is starting at the University of Texas at El Paso in the fall of 2023 as an assistant professor of economics. His research addresses topics at the intersection of labor, development, and migration economics. Some of his recent work explores the impact of return migration on economic development in countries of origin and the effect of US immigration policies on the well-being of minorities, particularly immigrants and Hispanics.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Research and Director of the Health Equity Working Group for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center
Dr. Keisha Bentley-Edwards is the Associate Director of Research and Director of the Health Equity Working Group for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and an Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, at Duke University. She holds several leadership positions within Duke's Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and faculty affiliations with Duke's Global Health and Cancer Institutes.
Dr. Bentley-Edwards' research focuses on how racism, gender, and culture influence development throughout the lifespan, especially for African Americans. Her research emphasizes cultural strengths and eliminating structural barriers to support healthy development in communities, families, and schools. Dr. Bentley-Edwards has published and lectured extensively on the use of racial socialization and racial cohesion strategies to facilitate positive outcomes in Black adolescents, as well as how teacher perceptions and school resources can influence disciplinary practices and classroom management. As head of the Cook Center's Health Equity Working Group, Dr. Bentley-Edwards leads a mixed method study investigating the relationships between religion and spirituality and cardiovascular disease risk factors for African Americans. She is dedicated to healthy birth and pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive health in general. Dr Bentley-Edwards is committed to eliminating racism and its effects on equitable outcomes in health systems, schools, and society. Her research has been supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, IBM, and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bentley-Edwards regularly shares her expertise on the role of structural racism and bias on health, education and social outcomes with families, policymakers, practitioners, and the media.
Job Titles:
- Faculty Affiliate and Assistant Professor of the Practice of Education
Kisha N. Daniels has worked extensively in the areas of teaching and learning with children, public school teachers, administrators, and university students for over 25 years. She holds a BA in elementary education, master's degrees in school counseling and administration, a specialist certification in curriculum and instruction, and a doctoral degree in educational leadership from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a teacher and administrator in large, urban school districts, she has devoted her work to utilizing and researching engaging curriculum that supports diverse learning styles. During her academic tenure, she was Associate Professor of Education Leadership and has held joint appointments as Director for the Office of Community Service Learning and the Office of Faculty Professional Development and was the Principal Investigator (Education Core) of a National Institute of Health P20 grant which focused on increasing underrepresented populations to pursue cardio-metabolic research careers.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences
Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein is an Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences and core faculty in the Samuel Dubois Cook Center on Social Equity . She is a national expert in examining how the criminal legal system impacts people, families, and communities. During the pandemic, she co-founded the COVID Prison Project, one of the only national data projects that tracks and analyzes COVID testing, cases, and deaths in prison systems across the country. She utilized the infrastructure of the COVID Prison Project to recently launch the Third City Project-a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded big data project that tracks and aggregates publicly available health and health policy data from carceral systems. Additionally, Dr. Brinkley-Rubinstein is the PI of several NIH and foundation grants focused on substance use, HIV prevention, and mortality. In 2019, she co-edited a special issue of AJPH that explored how mass incarceration is a socio-structural determinant of health and more recently was invited by the National Academy of Medicine to attend its Annual Emerging Leaders Forum. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, CNN, Science Magazine, and other media outlets. Her work blends research and policy, which has recently culminated in providing expert consultation to congress relevant to prison standards and data reporting.
Job Titles:
- Researcher at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
- Researcher, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
Lauren Russell is a researcher at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., focusing on topics related to racial disparities. She was previously a visiting research associate at the Cook Center during her Ph.D. candidacy. Her research interests lie in labor economics and public finance, with a focus on the intersections of poverty, race, inequality, and gender. She is specifically interested in neighborhood sorting, neighborhood effects, and U.S housing policy. She earned a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University, an M.A. in economics from Duke University, and a B.A. in classics with a minor in economics from Harvard University.
Lucas Hubbard writes stories, articles, and press releases to help illuminate and broadcast the Cook Center's research, in addition to helping edit reports produced by the Center. He obtained a B.S. in economics from Duke University with a minor in creative writing. Prior to joining the Cook Center, Lucas was the Clay Felker Staff Writer at Duke Magazine.
Job Titles:
- Professor at Pepperdine University School of Public Policy
- Professor of Public Policy, Pepperdine University
Luisa Blanco is a Professor at Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. She is a development economist and currently leads community-based participatory research projects focused on fostering economic inclusion. She leverages digital communications technology and tools to increase access to information and promote behavioral change among minorities to improve their financial wellbeing and health outcomes. She is currently a Research Economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a co-director of the Analysis Core for the Resource Center on Minority Aging Research - Center for Health Improvement of Minority Elderly (RCMAR-CHIME) at UCLA. She is also a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank. Blanco was Scientist at UCLA RCMAR-CHIME, a fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Interdisciplinary Research Leadership program, and a visiting scholar of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She was also a senior visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Oklahoma. She completed a Bachelors in Business Administration and an MBA from Midwestern State University.
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Professor of Economics and Director of the African Development Policy Program at the Political Economy Research Institute
- Economics and Director of African Development Policy Program, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Léonce Ndikumana is a Distinguished Professor of Economics and Director of the African Development Policy Program at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. He is a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) and former member of the United Nations Committee on Development Policy. He has served as Director of Research and Director of Operational Policies at the African Development Bank, and Chief of Macroeconomic Analysis at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). He is an Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. His research focuses on African development and Macroeconomics and covers the issues of external debt and capital flight, financial markets and growth, macroeconomic policies for growth and employment, and the economics of conflict and civil wars in Africa. He is co-editor of On the Trail of Capital Flight from Africa. The Takers and the Enablers (Oxford University Press), Capital Flight from Africa: Causes, Effects and Policy Issues (OUP), and co-author of Africa's Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent (Zed Books), which is published also in French as La Dette Odieuse d'Afrique : Comment l'endettement et la fuite des capitaux ont saigné un continent, in addition to dozens of academic articles and book chapters. Léonce Ndikumana is a graduate of the University of Burundi and received his doctorate in economics from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh
Omer is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh. Previously, he was an NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with Prof. William Darity Jr. His current research explores the role played by housing markets and housing policy in precipitating the racial wealth gap. His research interests include the political economy of inequality in the United States.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Faculty Affiliate and Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Dr. Sarah Gaither is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University. Prior to starting at Duke, she was a Provost's Postdoctoral Scholar in the Psychology Department and Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago after earning her Ph.D. and M.S. in Social Psychology from Tufts University and her B.A. in Social Welfare from U.C Berkeley. Her research focuses broadly on how a person's social identities and experiences across the lifespan motivate their social perceptions and behaviors in diverse settings. More specifically, she studies how contact with diverse others shapes social interactions, how having multiple racial or multiple social identities affects different types of social behavior and categorizations of others, and what contexts shape the development of racial perceptions and biases from childhood through adulthood. Growing up as a biracial Black/White woman is what has fueled her research path.
Job Titles:
- Faculty Affiliate and Director of "We Are" ( Working to Extend Anti - Racist Education )
With a critical race theory lens, Dr. Ronda Taylor Bullock studies whiteness and white youth's racial identity development. She uses education as a means to provide racial equity trainings and programs for youth, parents, and educators.
Xin is a research assistant working with Dr. Raffi García on a project investigating the game theory of self-reporting race in small business loan applications. They are also researching gender and racial inequality in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).