Our faculty members and affiliates are integral to our mission of studying the causes and consequences of inequality and developing remedies for these disparities and their adverse effects.
Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics (DITE)
The Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics (DITE) is a dedicated program aiming to enhance diversity within the realm of economics.
Through this initiative, we support and uplift scholars from diverse backgrounds, fostering an inclusive academic community.

Faculty Affiliates
Our faculty affiliates engage in equity-related research initiatives and actively contribute to projects within the Cook Centerâs research themes.

Jay A. Pearson
Jay A. Pearsonâs research examines how policy sponsored structural inequality influences social determination of health. He is particularly interested in the health effects of conventional and non-conventional resources associated with racial assignment, ethnic identity, national origin, immigration, and cultural orientations.

Jean Beaman
Jean Beaman is Associate Professor of Sociology, with affiliations with Black Studies, Political Science, Feminist Studies, Global Studies, and the Center for Black Studies Research, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously, she was faculty at Purdue University and held visiting fellowships at Duke University and the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Her research is ethnographic in nature and focuses on race/ethnicity, racism, international migration, and state violence in both France and the United States. She is author of Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France (University of California Press, 2017), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Her current book project is on suspect citizenship and belonging, anti-racist mobilization, and activism against state violence in France. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University. She is also an Associate Editor of the journal, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power and a Corresponding Editor for the journal Metropolitics/Metropolitiques. She is the Co-PI for the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant, âRace, Precarity, and Privilege: Migration in a Global Contextâ for 2020-2022 and a visiting fellow at Stanfordâs Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences for 2022-2023.

Jim C. Harper, II

JoaquĂn Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba
Faculty Affiliate; Policing Enforcement and Justice
Assistant Professor, UNC Chapel Hill
Participation in DITE: Cohort 11/12 Fellow
As an assistant professor in the Department of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, JoaquĂn Alfredo-Angel Rubalcabaâs research examines the intersection of health, labor, and education economics and contemporary policy issues that generate disparities along the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, immigration status, and class. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of New Mexico as a RWJF doctoral fellow and is affiliated with the Native American Budget and Policy Institute. Dr. Rubalcaba is also a faculty fellow at the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he explores the effects of public policy on the overall socioeconomic well-being of immigrant communities, including issues like labor dynamics in mixed-status households, local policing practices targeting migrant communities, and health outcomes.

John D. Purakal
Dr. John Purakal is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. His research interests include social drivers of health, racial & ethnic disparities of emergency care, and cardiovascular disease. Through his early career, Dr. Purakal has worked to advance Social Emergency Medicine, both at Duke University and across the country. He believes that the Emergency Department has a unique vantage point to the disproportionate role social determinants of health play in health outcomes in at-risk populations. His work aims to improve how we identify unmet social needs and address them, even when unrelated to their acute medical needs. With a passion for teaching, Dr. Purakal strives to find inventive ways to educate both trainees and his patientsâ communities. He has a track record for developing interdisciplinary public health educational initiatives, geared at reducing gaps in health knowledge in underserved populations in Chicago and Detroit before joining Duke.

Kisha N. Daniels
Kisha N. Daniels has worked extensively in the areas of teaching and learning with children, public school teachers, administrators, and university students for over 25 years. She holds a BA in elementary education, masterâs degrees in school counseling and administration, a specialist certification in curriculum and instruction, and a doctoral degree in educational leadership from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a teacher and administrator in large, urban school districts, she has devoted her work to utilizing and researching engaging curriculum that supports diverse learning styles. During her academic tenure, she was Associate Professor of Education Leadership and has held joint appointments as Director for the Office of Community Service Learning and the Office of Faculty Professional Development and was the Principal Investigator (Education Core) of a National Institute of Health P20 grant which focused on increasing underrepresented populations to pursue cardio-metabolic research careers.

Kristen Cooksey Stowers
Dr. Kristen Cooksey Stowers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut, a fellow with the UConn Health Disparities and Sustainable Global Cities Institutes, and Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity resident faculty affiliate. She has a strong interdisciplinary background in health equity, agricultural economics, public policy, and medical sociology. Her program of research focuses on reducing inequities in diet-related health outcomes by improving macro- and micro-level food environments through sustainable policy solutions.
She conducts community-engaged and mixed methods research to examine: (a) the impact of food swamp environments on racial, geographic and socioeconomic disparities in diet-related health outcomes; (b) the potential of inclusive public policy processes (e.g., zoning) to prevent disparities in diet-related health status regardless of racial/ethnic minority and citizenship status; and (c) the influence of micro-level food environments (e.g., food pantries, family child care homes) on health risks in food-insecure populations, communities of color, and other historically marginalized groups.
Dr. Cooksey Stowersâ research has been funded by NIH (i.e., NIA, NHLBI), the USDA, the Food Trust Center for Healthy Food Access, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Reinvestment Fund. Her leadership experience includes service with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and an appointment as a Public Service Leader Scholar with the USDA in Washington, D.C. Since coming to Connecticut in 2016, she has worked with community partners and residents aiming to improve grocery store access in the North Hartford Promise Zone. She also serves as a board member of the Connecticut Food Bank advising on their Hunger to Health initiative with health care organizations throughout the state. She mentors both undergraduate and graduate students.