Policy Topics

Gender, race and ethnicity

Gender, race and ethnicity

Showing 1 - 30 of 925 results
Emeritus faculty

Mary E. Corcoran

Professor Emerita of Public Policy, Political Science, and Women's and Gender Studies
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.…
Visiting faculty

Atinuke Adediran

Visiting Fellow, Center for Racial Justice
Atinuke (Tinu) Adediran’s is an Associate Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law. Her areas of expertise include institutional inequality, race and the law, nonprofits, corporations, and law and social science. Dr. Adediran has…
Visiting faculty

Julian Brave NoiseCat

Visiting Fellow, Center for Racial Justice
Julian Brave NoiseCat is a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie. he is a writer and filmmaker currently based in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of We Survived the Night and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and more.
Staff

Dom Adams-Santos

Managing Director, Center for Racial Justice
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.
Research faculty

Mara Ostfeld

Research Director, Center for Racial Justice; Associate Research Scientist, Ford School; Faculty Associate, Center for Political Studies; Faculty Associate, Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy
Dr. Mara Cecilia Ostfeld is the research director at the Center for Racial Justice, and an associate research scientist in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. In addition, Mara is a faculty lead at the Detroit Metro Area…
Faculty by courtesy

John Z. Ayanian

Alice B. Hamilton Distinguished University Professor of Medicine and Healthcare Policy; Director, Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation
Dr. John Ayanian is the Alice Hamilton Distinguished University Professor of Medicine and Healthcare Policy, the Alice Hamilton Collegiate Professor of Medicine at the Medical School, and professor of health management and policy at the School of…
Faculty by courtesy

Kristin Seefeldt

Associate Professor of Social Work; Associate Professor of Public Policy; Associate Faculty Director for Educational Programs
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.
Adjunct faculty

William D. Lopez

Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Public Health
Dr. William D. Lopez is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a faculty associate in the Latina/o Studies program at the University of Michigan. He is the author of the book, Separated: Family and…
Adjunct faculty

Katherine Walsh

Lecturer
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…
Core faculty

Yazier Henry

Teaching Professor in Public Policy
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.
Core faculty

Morela Hernandez

Ligia Ramirez de Reynolds Collegiate Professor of Public Policy; Faculty Director, Leadership Initiative
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.
Core faculty

Valenta Kabo

Lecturer III
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…
Core faculty

Paula Lantz

James B. Hudak Professor of Health Policy; Director, BA Programs
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.
Core faculty

Earl Lewis

Thomas C. Holt Distinguished University Professor of History, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Public Policy; Director, Center for Social Solutions
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…
Core faculty

Ann Chih Lin

Associate Professor of Public Policy; Director, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies
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.
Core faculty

Jeffrey D. Morenoff

Associate Dean for Research and Policy Engagement, Professor of Public Policy and Sociology
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.
Core faculty

Yusuf Neggers

Assistant Professor of Public Policy
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.
Core faculty

Shobita Parthasarathy

Professor of Public Policy; Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy program
Parthasarathy studies the governance of emerging science and technology and the politics of evidence and expertise in policy in comparative and international perspective. Her current research focuses on equity in innovation and innovation policy. She co-hosts The Received Wisdom podcast.
Core faculty

Natasha Pilkauskas

Associate Professor of Public Policy
Pilkauskas is a social demographer who studies the social safety net, children's living arrangements, and economic insecurity. Pilkauskas' work considers how social policy might improve the developmental and life trajectories of children living in poverty.
Core faculty

Attia Qureshi

Lecturer
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…
Core faculty

Stephanie L. Sanders

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer; Lecturer
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…
Core faculty

Fabiana Silva

Assistant Professor of Public Policy
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.
Core faculty

Celeste M. Watkins-Hayes

Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy; Director, Center for Racial Justice; Jean E. Fairfax Collegiate Professor of Public Policy; University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor; Professor of Sociology; Research and Community Impact Fellow, Anti-Racism Collaborative
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.
Core faculty

Justin Wolfers

Professor of Public Policy and Economics (on sabbatical leave)
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.

Center for Racial Justice

Racial justice is the systematic fair treatment of people, regardless of racial background, that results in equitable opportunities and outcomes for everyone.We seek a world in which people are able to achieve their full potential in life,...

Programs & events

The Center for Racial Justice hosts programs and events open to the Ford School community and the public. The Masterclass in Activism is a widely advertised event series in which the center's director will be in conversation with noted activists...

Student engagement

  The multidisciplinary approach of the Center for Racial Justice will allow students to complement their curriculum with research- and action-based opportunities to understand and address racial inequity. The center will give us the tools,...

Visiting fellows program

The visiting fellows program will become the center’s signature initiative, offering social justice changemakers (activists, artists, advocates, and scholars) a prestigious, highly competitive award designed to recognize their transformative...

Kohn Collaborative for Social Policy

The Kohn Collaborative for Social Policy is a Ford School hub that will catalyze interdisciplinary research and policy impact to promote social equity and inclusion. The collaborative consists of three pillars: Kohn Professors, Kohn Scholars, and...