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David A. Bateman is an associate professor in the department of Government and a member of the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. His research focuses on democratic institutions, with a particular attention to how these can both reinforce structures of oppression and disenfranchisement as well as become sites for their transformation and dismantling. He is the author of Disenfranchising Democracy: The Construction of the Electorate in the United States, United Kingdom, and France (Cambridge University Press) and co-author, with Ira Katznelson and John Lapinski, of Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy after Reconstruction (Princeton University Press). His current research includes an examination of the diverse forms and objects of political and economic activism undertaken by African Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and its importance for subsequent labor and civil rights organizing; and a political-historical analysis of the development of the ideas, institutions, and supporting organizations of “industrial democracy” in the United States.

He received his undergraduate degree from Concordia University and master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Personal Website | @povertyscholar

Jamila Michener is an associate professor in the department of Government at Cornell University and the Senior Associate Dean of Public Engagement at the Brooks School of Public Policy. She studies poverty, race, and public policy in the United States. Her research investigates the ways that public policy shapes the material and political lives of economically and racially marginalized Americans, as well as the ways that members of such groups shape American policy and politics. She is author of Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press). Her current research examines the ways that civil legal institutions affect democratic citizenship in marginalized communities. She is the director of the Cornell Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures.

Michener’s research has been supported by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Ford Foundation. She received her master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and her undergraduate degree from Princeton University.

Personal Website | @SergioGarciaRs

Sergio Garcia-Rios is an assistant professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, and Associate Director of Research at the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD). His research focuses on the politics of race and identity, especially as they relate to immigrants and Latinos. He also studies voter turnout, political participation, and public opinion, especially among Latino immigrants. He collaborates with Univision News as their Director for Polling and Data and is a Senior Researcher at Latino Decisions.

Garcia-Rios’s research has been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation and the Institute for the Social Sciences. He was an assistant professor in the department of Government and Latino Studies at Cornell University. Garcia-Rios received his undergraduate degree and master’s from the University of Texas at El Paso. He received his master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Washington.