Expert Type: Guest Author

Sarah Elizabeth Gaither is an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Previously, she was the Provost’s Career Enhancement postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. Gaither’s research interests include biracial and social identities, interracial interactions, racial categorizations, and social development. Gaither focuses on how individuals’ social identities and experiences across the lifespan motivate their social perceptions and behaviors, particularly in diverse settings. Her work has appeared in Developmental Science, Journal of Social Issues, and Social Psychological and Personality Science, among others. Gaither received her Ph.D. and M.S. in social psychology from Tufts University, and her B.A. in social welfare from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mónica García-Pérez is a professor of economics at the School of Public Affairs at St. Cloud State University. Her research concentrates on topics of immigration, health economics, and labor economics. García-Pérez also is working on wealth inequality across race/ethnicity and the impact of health shocks. She is a research fellow at the Roy Wilkins Center in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. She has published her research in economics and interdisciplinary journals such as Demography, American Economic Review, International Education Planning, Review of Black Political Economy, and Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, among others. García-Pérez is the director of the SCSU Faculty Research Group of Immigrants in Minnesota and currently is the 2020 president of the American Society of Hispanic Economists and a board member of the Annual Health Econometrics Workshop. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park, her M.S. in economics from University College London, and her B.A. in economics from Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Tim Hicks is an associate professor in public policy at the University College London. His research interests are currently in the areas of the politics of fiscal policy, economic and political inequality, and the politics and policy of schooling provision. He holds a B.Sc. in economics from the University of Bristol, an M.Sc. in European public policy from the University College London, and a D.Phil. in politics from Nuffield College, Oxford.

Alan M. Jacobs is a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia. He received his B.A. in political science from Yale University, his M.Sc. in European social policy analysis from the University of Bath, and his A.M. and Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.

Carmen Sanchez Cumming was a research associate at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Prior to joining Equitable Growth, Sanchez Cumming was a campaigns assistant at Oxfam America and research assistant at Middlebury College’s Department of Sociology. Her interests are in labor market policy, wage inequality, and market concentration. Sanchez Cumming holds a B.A. in economics and sociology from Middlebury College.

Amanda Fischer was the Policy Director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Prior to joining Equitable Growth, she worked for more than a decade on Capitol Hill in roles related to economic policymaking. Fischer was chief of staff for Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA). She also served as staff on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs for Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), as a policy advisor for Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and as deputy staff director for the House Committee on Financial Services for Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA). She graduated with a bachelor’s degrees in business administration and public policy from the University at Buffalo and an M.A. in public policy from Georgetown University.

Phil Weiser is Colorado Attorney General, sworn in as the State’s 39th Attorney General on January 8, 2019. As the state’s chief legal officer, he is committed to protecting the people of Colorado and building an innovative and collaborative organization that will address a range of statewide challenges, from addressing the opioid epidemic to reforming our criminal justice system to protecting our land, air, and water. Before running for office, Weiser served as the Hatfield Professor of Law and Dean of the University of Colorado Law School, where he founded the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship and co-chaired the Colorado Innovation Council. Weiser previously served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice and as Senior Advisor for Technology and Innovation in the Obama Administration’s National Economic Council. He served on President Obama’s Transition Team, overseeing the Federal Trade Commission and previously served in President Bill Clinton’s Department of Justice as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division, advising on telecommunications matters, Before his appointment at the Justice Department, Weiser served as a law clerk to Justices Byron R. White and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge David Ebel at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado.

Nathan is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Demography at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was also a predoctoral trainee at the Center for Demography and Ecology. Prior to entering the doctoral program in Sociology at UW-Madison, he received a B.A. in Sociology and French from Tulane University in 2011 and an M.A. in Applied Quantitative Research from New York University in 2014.

Sam Abbott is a former family economic security senior policy analyst at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Before Equitable Growth, Abbott was a child welfare and juvenile justice researcher and consultant at Child Trends and Georgetown University’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform. He received an M.P.P. from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Bard College.