Gender, race and ethnicity

Mary E. Corcoran is a professor emerita of public policy, political science, and women's studies. Her research focuses on the effects of gender and race discrimination on economic status and earnings, and on professional women's career trajectories.…

Dr. Adams-Santos is a qualitative researcher who centers questions of sexuality, intimacy, and belonging in the digital era; in particular, how individuals navigate the racial, gender, and sexual politics of digital and urban landscapes in their search for intimacy and community.

Thompson's work focuses on the causes and consequences of racial and socioeconomic inequality, with an emphasis on understanding the role of education in producing disparate outcomes over the life-course.

Mara Cecilia Ostfeld is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan and an assistant research scientist at the Ford School. Her research broadly focuses on the relationship between race, media and political attitudes.…

Seefeldt’s primary research interests lie in exploring how low-income individuals understand their situations, particularly around issues related to work and economic well being. Currently, she is conducting research on families’ financial coping strategies and is a Principal Investigator of a survey examining the effects of the recession and recovery policies on individuals’ well being.

Kat Walsh is a lecturer at the Ford School. She is also the executive director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at U-M's Office of University Development (OUD), where she heads department-wide efforts toward implementing policies aimed at…

Henry has written and published on the political economy of social voice, memory, trauma, identity, peace processes, Truth Commissions, international transitional justice and international humanitarian law. His research and writing projects focus on how structural and administrative violence come to be institutionalized during post-colonial transitions. His current work is on the discourse of human rights, structural violence and the politics of official voice.

Hernandez is an internationally recognized scholar with deep expertise in applying behavioral science insights to design and improve organizational systems and decision-making practices. She is widely published in top-tier academic journals and popular media outlets, and serves on several editorial boards. At Michigan, Hernandez teaches courses on leadership and serves as faculty director of the Ford School's Leadership Initiative.

Valenta Kabo is a lecturer at the Ford School. Her fields of interest are comparative law, law and economics, and property rights and development. She earned her PhD in political science and public policy from the University of Michigan. She also has…

A social demographer, Lantz studies the role of public policy in improving population health and reducing social disparities in health. She is currently engaged in research regarding innovative financing approaches for supportive housing among Medicaid beneficiaries, and also on how COVID-19 is exacerbating existing social and health inequalities in the U.S.

Earl Lewis is the Thomas C. Holt Distinguished University Professor of History, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Public Policy, and the founding director of the U-M Center for Social Solutions. From March 2013-2018, he served as president of The…

Lin, a political scientist, studies how people experience policy implementation. Her current work examines racial and ethnic difference in the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic; bias reduction against Muslims; national security scapegoating of immigrant groups; conservatism among immigrants; and subnational labor migration policy.

Morenoff's research interests include neighborhood environments, inequality, crime and criminal justice, the social determinants of health, racial/ethnic/immigrant disparities in health and antisocial behavior, and methods for analyzing multilevel and spatial data.

Neggers's research examines questions at the intersection of development economics and political economy, with a focus on state capacity and the delivery of public services. He has studied the effects of caste and ethnicity on election processes in India.

Parthasarathy studies the governance of emerging science and technology and politics of evidence and expertise in policy in comparative and international perspective. Her current work focuses on the development and implications of COVID-19 testing, and inclusive innovation in international development. She co-hosts The Received Wisdom podcast.

Pilkauskas' research considers how social policy might improve the developmental and life trajectories of low-income children. She has looked at living arrangements of low-income children, especially those who live with grandparents, as well as the role of family/kin transfers in helping families make ends meet; links between maternal employment and school outcomes; the effectiveness of the Earned Income Tax Credit; and the effects of the Great Recession on low-income households.

Attia Qureshi is a lecturer in negotiations at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and in communications at the Ross School of Business. An organizational culture consultant, she lays the groundwork for progress and…

Stephanie L. Sanders is a lecturer and diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at the Ford School. Through the lens of critical race theory, Sanders' research agenda examines students who transition from urban environments to rural, predominantly…

Silva studies the mechanisms that perpetuate (or mitigate) group-based labor market inequality, with a focus on social networks and employer discrimination. She examines how employers reward the referrals of black and white job applicants, the relationship between employers' racial attitudes and their hiring behavior, and the determinants of how people are racially classified by others. She also investigates how different ways of framing immigration affect attitudes towards immigration policy.

Watkins-Hayes is an internationally-recognized scholar and expert on HIV/AIDS; urban poverty; social policy; and racial, class, and gender inequality. Her work illuminates social problems of great interest to scholars, communities, and policymakers. She works at the intersection of sociology, African American Studies, and public policy. Her work analyzes the impact of the HIV epidemic on women and the growth of the HIV safety net.

Wolfers is an economist with broad policy-related interests and experience. He is also affiliated with the NBER, Brookings and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He is a contributing columnist for the New York Times and host of the “Think Like An Economist” podcast. He is a popular teacher and author of a leading economics textbook.

Matthew Alemu completed his B.S. in Accounting at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans in 2006. Afterwards, he received his MPP from the University of Michigan in 2009. Before returning to U of M in Fall 2012, Matthew worked as a policy…