Authors and Contributors


FENABA R. ADDO is an associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research program examines the causes and consequences of debt and wealth inequality with a focus on higher education, family, and relationships. Dr. Addo has a PhD in policy analysis and management from Cornell University.

STEVEN J. AMENDUM is a professor in the School of Education in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Delaware. He studies early reading development, literacy development and instruction for multilingual learners, and evidence-based classroom literacy instruction. He also supports schools and classroom practitioners by providing effective professional learning. He has a PhD in literacy education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MEd in reading education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

LESLIE BABINSKI is an associate research professor and director of the Center for Child and Family Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Her areas of expertise are in teacher consultation and collaboration, teacher professional development, and school-based interventions for children and adolescents. Dr. Babinski has an MA and PhD in educational and school psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

SANDRA L. BARNES is the CV Starr Professor of Sociology and department chairperson at Brown University. She was previously a joint-appointed professor of sociology in the Department of Human and Organizational Development in the Peabody College of Education and Human Development and the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University. Her work focuses on the role of religion and congregations as change agents in society. Her most recent book is Kings of Mississippi: Race, Religious Education, and the Making of a Middle-Class Black Family in the Segregated South (2019). Dr. Barnes earned master’s degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Interdenominational Theological Center and a PhD degree in sociology from Georgia State University.

MARY T. BASSETT is health commissioner of the New York State Department of Health. She was previously director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights and FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights in the Department of Social and Behavioral Science at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. In her career spent promoting health equity and social justice throughout academia, government, and not-for- profit work, Dr. Bassett has earned numerous awards and accolades, including the Frank A. Calderone Prize in Public Health, a Kenneth A. Forde Lifetime Achievement Award from Columbia University, a Victoria J. Mastrobuono Award for Women’s Health, and the National Organization for Women’s Champion of Public Health Award. She received her mph from the University of Washington and her MD from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons (serving her residency at Harlem Hospital).

KEISHA L. BENTLEY-EDWARDS is an associate professor at Duke University’s School of Medicine, General Internal Medicine Division, and the associate director of research and director of the Health Equity Working Group for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. She is a developmental psychologist who uses a cultural lens to understand the human experience and health outcomes. Her research focuses on how racism, gender, and culture influence social, physical, and emotional health as well as academic outcomes. Dr. Bentley-Edwards has an MA in developmental psychology from the Teachers College at Columbia University and a PhD in interdisciplinary studies in human development from the University of Pennsylvania.

KISHA N. DANIELS is an assistant professor of the practice of education at Duke University. Her lengthy career in the teaching and schooling world has led her to research on teacher quality, collaborative teaching, and community engagement. Her most recent book is Creating Caring and Supportive Educational Environments for Meaningful Learning (2018). Dr. Daniels has a doctorate in education leadership, curriculum, and instruction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

WILLIAM A. DARITY JR. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics at Duke University and the founding director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Darity’s research focuses on inequality by race, class, and ethnicity; stratification economics; and schooling and the racial achievement gap. His most recent book is From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century (2020). Dr. Darity holds a PhD in economics from MIT.

MELANIA DIPIETRO is a public elementary school teacher in the southeastern United States. She currently works as an ESL teaching assistant, primarily with students in the middle grades. Previously, DiPietro worked in Mexico as a teacher’s assistant in a private Catholic school.

JANE DOKKO is the vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s community development and policy studies division. In this role, she leads research and community engagement to create opportunities and improve economic outcomes for low-and moderate-income people and places. During the Obama Administration, Dokko was the deputy assistant secretary for financial economics at the US Treasury Department and a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Dokko has a master’s and PhD in economics from the University of Michigan.

FIONA GREIG is a managing director and the co-president at the JPMorgan Chase Institute and holds adjunct professor appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University. She has published research on topics including household finance, healthcare, labor markets and the online platform economy, gender, and behavioral decision making. Her work has been widely cited in the media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and CNBC. She has a PhD in public policy from Harvard University.

ADAM HOLLOWELL is a senior research associate at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and the director of the inequality studies minor at Duke University. He is also the faculty director of the Benjamin N. Duke Scholarship Program. He completed his PhD and MTh in theological ethics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

LUCAS HUBBARD is an associate in research at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, where he writes articles and press releases to help illuminate and broadcast the Cook Center’s research. He also edits reports produced by the Center. His writing has appeared in Indy Week, Duke Magazine, Paste, and Deadspin.

DAMON JONES is an associate professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. He conducts research at the intersection of public finance and household finance. His current research topics include inequality, household financial vulnerability, income-tax policy, social security, retirement savings, worker benefits, and labor markets. Dr. Jones has a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

STEVEN KNOTEK’S research interest focuses on the use of a human-centered design approach to co-design innovations with community stakeholders (i.e., parents and teachers) to promote children’s and youths’ academic and social-emotional development and thriving. He is also the coordinator of the School Psychology Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is developing an implementation coaching model to bridge the science-to- service gap and allow innovation adopters (e.g., teachers, coaches) to thoughtfully adapt evidence-based programs to be culturally responsive. He has an MA in counseling from the University of San Francisco and a PhD in educational psychology and human development from the University of California, Berkeley.

ARVIND KRISHNAMURTHY is a PhD candidate in political science at Duke University studying the political behavior and race and ethnic politics subfields. He works with the Duke Center for Science and Justice and is a coauthor of Deadly Justice: A Statistical Portrait of the Death Penalty (2017). His research also appears in the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy and the Wake Forest Law Review.

HENRY CLAY MCKOY JR. is the lead entrepreneurship faculty and director of entrepreneurship in the School of Business at North Carolina Central University, as well as professor of practice in strategy and entrepreneurship in the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a national speaker and thought leader in the areas of community and economic development, social innovation and entrepreneurship, energy finance and the green economy, sustainability, and sustainable business development. Dr. McKoy has a PhD from the City and Regional Planning Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

N. JOYCE PAYNE is the founder of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and a long-standing authority on women’s issues in relation to higher education and labor force participation. Dr. Payne has published and presented a number of papers on the pursuit of equality for women and African Americans in higher education. She has been inducted into both the District of Columbia’s Hall of Fame and the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame. Dr. Payne earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in education from the former Atlanta University.

ERICA R. PHILLIPS is an educational equity and policy specialist at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. She serves on the Educational Policy working group, focusing on K-12 students, and is a research associate for a federal grant studying the benefits and inequities of gifted programming. She has an MA in educational equity, policy, and reform from Duke University.

EUGENE T. RICHARDSON, MD, PHD is a physician-anthropologist in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where his overall focus is on biosocial approaches to Ebola and covid-19 prevention, containment, and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. He is the author of Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health and cochair of the Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice. Dr. Richardson has an md from Cornell University Medical College and a PhD from Stanford University.

PAUL A. ROBBINS is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University. He primarily conducts research about the role of families and communities in fostering optimal development and combating academic and health disparities. Dr. Robbins has a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Texas at Austin.

JUNG SAKONG was an economist in the community development and policy studies division of the economic research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. His research focuses on household finance and wealth inequality. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

MARTA SÁNCHEZ was an associate professor of social foundations at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and an educational anthropologist conducting research with students, families, and teachers in the New Latino South. She authored the book Fathering within and beyond the Failures of the State with Imagination, Work and Love (2017). She earned a PhD from the School of Education, Culture, Curriculum, and Change at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MEd in early childhood education from the Erikson Institute in Chicago.

MELISSA J. SCOTT is a former postdoctoral associate at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, with interests in environmental health disparities, climate change health impacts, and health equity. She is currently researching the prevalence of heat-related illnesses and deaths in six redlined neighborhoods in Durham, North Carolina, compared to non-redlined neighborhoods to determine whether there are disparities in heat-related illnesses and deaths across races; she is also examining the relationship between religion/spirituality and risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as depression, in the black community. Dr. Scott has an MA in bioethics from New York University and a PhD in environment and resources at the University of Wisconsin.

KRISTEN R. STEPHENS is the co-director of the Education Policy Working Group at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and an associate professor of the practice in the program of education at Duke University. Her research explores legal and policy issues with regard to gifted education at the federal, state, and local levels and how teachers assess creative student products to inform future instruction. Dr. Stephens has a PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi.

JOE WILLIAM TROTTER JR. is the Giant Eagle University Professor of History and Social Justice at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, past chair of the History Department, director and founder of the Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy (cause), and president of the Urban History Association. A specialist on African American and US urban, labor, and working-class history, his most recent books include Pittsburgh and the Urban League Movement: A Century of Social Service and Activism (2020) and Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America (2019). Dr. Trotter received his ma and PhD degrees from the University of Minnesota.

CHRIS WHEAT is a managing director and the co-president of the JPMorgan Chase Institute. He worked as an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and at the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at Rutgers Business School. He has a master’s degree in sociology and a PhD in organizational behavior, both from Harvard University, as well as a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.

GWENDOLYN L. WRIGHT is the senior administrator and research scientist for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Wright’s experience spans more than twenty years in organizational administration, research development, and higher education. Her research interests focus on intersectionality and African American women leaders in the academy. Dr. Wright has a doctorate in education from North Carolina State University.