Our Experts

After receiving a PhD from Princeton, Aronson did post-doctoral work at Stanford University with Professor Claude Steele. In 1995 Steele and Aronson published their landmark laboratory studies on “stereotype threat,” a performance-inhibiting phenomenon that occurs when students confront the negative expectations of the particular stereotypes assigned their race. The studies show that if you could minimize stereotype threat in testing situations, you could get rid of a big portion of the gap between blacks and whites on standardized tests.

Since then, Aronson has continued his laboratory research, but he has also conducted intervention work in the schools, both examining the psychological underpinnings of the performance gap and developing practical methods for reducing it. Aronson is also starting to assemble a nationwide coalition of experts concerned with this achievement gap who will eventually create a national task force to focus their efforts and share research.

He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Irvine in 2005. His research examines the political participation of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States and his work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Political
Research Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, and other peer-reviewed journals.Matt specializes in Latino and immigrant voting behavior, and teaches courses on Racial and Ethnic Politics, Latino Politics, Voting and Elections, and American Politics at UW. Part of his research agenda also includes public opinion and election surveys, including exit polling methodology. Matt is also an affiliated research scholar with the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute (www.trpi.org) since 1999 and with the Center for the Study of Los Angeles (www.lmu.edu/csla) since 2002. In 2004, he was a co-author of the TRPI/Washington Post National Survey of Latino voters and in 2005, he was co-principal investigator of the CSLA Los Angeles Mayoral exit poll.Matt Barreto’s Research

Ludovic is currently Program Director of the Progressive Era Project/Color of Democracy Fund, working with donors to build progressive power of people of color in key counties in California. Previously he helped to direct the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative at the Insight Center, working with 140 economic and financial experts of color to develop and advocate for federal policies that would close the racial wealth gap. Previously Ludovic was the National Campaign Coordinator for the $6 million 12 state Equal Voice for America’s Families Campaign, and has led organizing and advocacy work for almost two decades on environmental justice, anti-racist strategic communications and other racial justice issues.

She is author of Won’t You Be My Neighbor: Race, Class and Residence in Los Angeles (Russell Sage, Fall 2006), which class- and race-based explanations for persisting residential segregation by race. She is also co-author of The Source of the River: The Social Origins of Freshmen at America’s Selective Colleges and Universities (2003, Princeton University Press). More recently, she is co-author of the forthcoming book, Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in Selective Colleges and Universities (co-authored with Douglas S. Massey and colleagues; Princeton University Press), the second in a series based The National
Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, and Race in the American Mind: From the Moynihan Report to the Obama Candidacy (with Lawrence Bobo). She is also nearing completion of a sole-authored book on Black racial identity in the United States, tentatively titled, The New Black: Race Conscious or Post-Racial?Professor Charles earned her Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of California,
Los Angeles, where she was a project manager for the 1992-1994 Multi-City Study
of Urban Inequality. Her research interests are in the areas of urban inequality,
racial attitudes and intergroup relations, racial residential segregation, minorities
in higher education, and racial identity; her work has appeared in Social Forces,
Social Problems, Social Science Research, The DuBois Review, the American Journal
of Education, the Annual Review of Sociology, The Chronicle of Higher Education,
and The Root.

Her recent projects focus on specifying factors that create and magnify stereotypes and prejudice, examining their influence on behavior and developing strategies aimed at undermining such biases. These projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health and the American Psychological Foundation.Nilanjana Dasgupta’s Research

She is currently pursuing research projects to determine differential empathy levels toward young men and police officers, media messages to address racialized moments, and the link between stereotype threat and the success of students of color in law. Professor Godsil’s recent publications include Implicit Bias in the Courtroom (UCLA Law Review, forthcoming) co-authored with Jerry Kang et al.; Implicit Bias in Environmental Decision Making in Implicit Racial Bias Across the Law (Oxford University Press, 2012), and Implicit Bias Insights as Preconditions to Structural Change, co-authored with john powell. She has written several amicus briefs in cases involving civil rights, including on behalf of the National Parent Teacher Association in the Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District litigation at the Supreme Court. She is also the co-editor of Awakening from the Dream: Civil Rights Under Siege and the New Struggle for Equal Justice (Carolina Academic Press, 2005).

He was born in Philadelphia, PA, and raised in the nearby suburbs. He concentrated in Afro-American Studies at Harvard University and studied Social Psychology at Stanford University before taking his first appointment at The Pennsylvania State University. While there, Dr. Goff created the Africana Research Center’s Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program and coordinated it for 2 years before leaving. His research has led him to become an expert in race, policing, and intersectional identity. In that capacity, Dr. Goff has been recruited as an equity researcher and consultant for police departments around the country, a role he continues to play enthusiastically. His work on equity issues in policing has led to foundation of the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity with Tracie L. Keesee.Goff’s research investigates the possibility that contextual explanations play an under-explored role in producing racial inequality. Rather than focusing on racial attitudes that are internal to an individual, his research examines ways in which environmental factors can produce racially disparate outcomes. Through this research, he hopes to expand the scope of what comes to mind when one thinks of the causes and consequences of inequality. Phillip Goff’s Research

He has several early career highlights including working in the professional sector at three national organizations that specialize in understanding the science of the mind and human behavior—the National Institutes of Health, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Institutes for Research. He possesses a command over quantitative analytical approaches with a Master’s degree in Quantitative Research, Evaluation, and Measurement.To date, his research program has been recognized with several prestigious honors, including a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, a Dissertation Research Fellowship from The Ohio State University, and an AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship. In addition, the quality of his work has been acknowledged with national awards such as the Research on Socially and Economically Underrepresented Populations Award (RiSE-UP) from the Association for Psychological Science.DeLeon examines the “social triggers” that prompt achievement behavior in diverse educational environments. Specifically, he is intrigued by how students perceive, remember, and interpret information about themselves and others, and how these mental representations facilitate the adoption of the very goals, values, and self-perceptions that determine aptitude. Practically, his research informs discussions on how student patterns of underachievement and emotional turbulence can be disrupted by strategies borne of an understanding of social cognition and motivation.

She serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Social Inclusion and Americans for American Values, as well as on the Boards of Americans For a Fair Democracy, World Trust Educational Services, and Institute for America’s Future.

On communications, Professor Kang has published on the topics of privacy, pervasive computing, mass media policy, and cyber-race (the techno-social construction of race in cyberspace). His work regularly appears in leading journals, such as the UCLA, Stanford, and Harvard Law Reviews. During law school, Professor Kang was a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review and Special Assistant to Harvard University’s Advisory Committee on Free Speech.He joined UCLA in Fall 1995 and was elected Professor of the Year in 1998 and received the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2007. At UCLA, he helped found the Concentration for Critical Race Studies, the first program of its kind in American legal education and acted as its founding co-director for two
years. During 2003-05, Prof. Kang visited at both Georgetown Law Center and Harvard Law School.Prof. Kang is a member of the American Law Institute, has chaired the American Association of Law School’s Section on Defamation and Privacy, serves on the Board of Directors of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and has received numerous awards including the World Technology Award for Law and
the Vice President’s “Hammer Award” for Reinventing Government.Jerry Kang’s Research

Lake and her firm are known for cutting edge research on issues including the economy, health care, the environment and education, and have worked for a number
of institutions including the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Governor’s Association (DGA), The White House Project, AFL-CIO, SEIU, CWA, IAFF, Sierra Club, NARAL, Human Rights Campaign, Emily’s List and the Kaiser Foundation. Her work also took her to advise fledgling democratic parties in several post-war Eastern European countries, including Bosnia, and South Africa.Lake has appeared on numerous television and radio news programs discussing her work and providing expert commentary. She is one of the nation’s foremost experts on electing women candidates and on framing issues to women voters. She is renowned for her groundbreaking research on single women voters in conjunction with Women’s Voices Women Vote and has helped elect numerous female candidates.She also works for Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House. Prior to forming Lake Research Partners, Lake was partner and vice president at Greenberg-Lake. Her earlier experience includes serving as political director of the Women’s Campaign Fund, and as the Research Director at the Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Policy Analyst for the Subcommittee on Select Education.

Prior to creating EJS, Eva worked at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights for 26 years, serving as its Executive Director from 1990 through 2003. She also co-founded and chaired the California Coalition for Civil Rights for 18 years. Eva also served as Vice President of the ACLU National Board for eight years, and chaired the boards of Equal Rights Advocates and the San Francisco Bar Association.Paterson has received numerous awards, including the Fay Stender Award from the California Women Lawyers, Woman of the Year from the Black Leadership Forum, the Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU of Northern California, and the Alumni Award of Merit from Northwestern University where she received her B.A. in political science.She is the executive producer of Presidential Race a film exploring race and race issues in the context of Barack Obama’s historic election as President of the United States.

Professor powell has written extensively on a number of issues including structural racism, racial justice and regionalism, concentrated poverty and urban sprawl, opportunity based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, racial and ethnic identity, spirituality and social justice, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society.Under his leadership, The Kirwan Institute has taken a number of projects that engage the question of how most effectively to address issues of race justice. Some of the Institute’s work specifically examines how people talk about race and how such conversations impact their behavior. In the Diversity Advancement Project, the Institute is collaborating with the Center for Social Inclusion to develop strategies to increase public support for racial, ethnic and gender diversity in our public and private institutions. The project on Democratic Merit aims to push colleges and universities toward greater investment in those communities and students whose success is needed to enhance the health and strength of our multiracial democracy. And in the Institute’s projects on African American-Immigrant coalition building, they work to understand the conditions and contexts that facilitate constructive, institutionalized relationships across lines of race and nativity, and those that tend to undermine or preclude such relationships.john a. powell’s Research

He received his PhD jointly from Harvard Psychology department and Harvard Business School, publishing research on experimental approaches to maximizing the effectiveness of voter contact. Prior to graduate school, Todd was a pollster with Abacus and Associates. His research is currently published or in press in peer-reviewed journals in psychology, political science, marketing, management, organizational behavior, and decision science, and in the forthcoming book Behavioral Foundations of Policy.Named a “Rising Star” by Politics Magazine, Todd is also a Senior Researcher with Ideas42 at Harvard University and the associate director of the Consortium of Behavioral Scientists. The consortium coordinates a team of eminent researchers in cognitive science, psychology, behavioral economics, and marketing to translate behavioral science into political communications strategies for progressives.

His research interests are in three areas. Throughout his career he has been interested in processes of self-evaluation, in particular in how people cope with self-image threat. This work has led to a general theory of self- affirmation processes. A second interest, growing out of the first, is a theory of how group stereotypes — by posing an extra self-evaluative and belongingness threat to such groups as African Americans in all academic domains and women in quantitative domains — can influence intellectual performance and academic identities. Third, he has long been interested in addictive behaviors, particularly alcohol addiction, where his work with several colleagues has led to a theory of “alcohol myopia,” a theory in which many of alcohol’s social and stress-reducing effects — effects that may underlie its addictive capacity — are explained as a consequence of alcohol’s narrowing of perceptual and cognitive functioning.Professor Steele received his B.A. degree from Hiram College (Hiram, Ohio) and his Ph.D. degree in psychology from The Ohio State University in 1971. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Society and as President of the Western Psychological Association. He has also served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Society of Experimental Social Psychologists, as a member of the Executive Committee of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (Division of the APA), and on the editorial boards of numerous journals and study sections at both the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. He is a Fellow of the APS and the APA, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of a Cattell Faculty Fellowship from the Cattell Foundation and the 1996 Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize.

Her main research programs concern experiences with intergroup contact, identification with social groups, interpretations of intergroup relationships, and responses to prejudice and disadvantage. She has received the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues for her research on intergroup contact, the Erikson Early Career Award for distinguished research contributions from the International Society of Political Psychology, and the McKeachie Early Career Teaching Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Dr. Tropp has been a member of the Governing Council of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and she currently serves on the editorial boards of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Group Processes and Intergroup Relations.In addition, Dr. Tropp has been engaged in many efforts to integrate contributions from researchers and practitioners to improve intergroup relations. She has collaborated with national organizations to present social science evidence in US Supreme Court cases on racial desegregation, and she has worked on state initiatives designed to improve interracial relations in schools. She is currently a member of the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and Ethnic Diversity (JLICED), an international, interdisciplinary network of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working to reduce racial and ethnic divisions and build social inclusive communities through effective early childhood education programs.Linda Tropp’s Research

Ms. Villarosa has been in philanthropy for more than 18 years. Prior to launching PRE in 2003, Ms. Villarosa was a program officer with the Flint-based C. S. Mott Foundation, where she developed and managed its portfolio on race relations and institutional racism within the U.S.  Her portfolio covered a broad spectrum of community-based, academic, advocacy and research efforts at a time when a number of new approaches were emerging due to the changing demographics and post-Civil Rights Movement redefining of racial equity work.  She also identified and managed numerous grants aimed at race and the media, polling and messaging.She has served on numerous nonprofit advisory committees and a number of foundation boards.  She has been an active member or leader in several funder affinity groups including Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, the Association of Black Foundation Executives, and Hispanics in Philanthropy.Ms. Villarosa worked as a reporter at the Detroit Free Press, The Chicago Tribune, and the Flint Journal. She began her tenure at the Mott Foundation in its Communications Departmentand holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Oakland University.

His current research projects include a study of the effects of racial cues on political evaluations, an investigation into the racial origins and consequences
of felony disenfranchisement provisions, and a study examining Americans’ beliefs about the genetic origins of race and gender. Work from these projects has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Black Studies and Virginia Journal of Law and Social Policy.Ismail White’s Research