About

Khalil Gibran Muhammad

IARA Director and Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race and Public Policy

Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. He directs the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project and is the former Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library and the world’s leading library and archive of global black history. Before leading the Schomburg Center, Khalil was an associate professor at Indiana University.

Artair Rogers

Ph.D. in Population Health Sciences candidate at Harvard School of Public Health

Artair Rogers is a doctoral student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health pursuing a Ph.D. in Population Health Sciences. Additionally, Artair currently serves as an equity advisor for Shift Health Accelerator, an organization focused on community governance, equitable institutional investments, and anti-racism accountability principles within the health care sector.

Prior to pursuing his Ph.D., Artair was the California Program Director for Health Leads, a national nonprofit focused on addressing social determinants of health (SDOH) in partnership with health systems, community-based organizations, and community members. . Previously, Artair served as a Senior Consultant for the Southern California Region of Kaiser Permanente where his work also focused on addressing SDOH in high utilizer patient populations.

Artair holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy Leadership and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Mississippi. He also completed a Master of Science in Health Systems Administration from Georgetown University. Artair’s research interests are frameworks for anti-racism accountability for health care organizations, health equity data frameworks, and reparations as a public health measure.

Alison Pasquariello

IARA Digital Project Manager

Alison Pasquariello is the Digital Project Manager for the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project. Alison was taught to think ahead toward the next seven generations. For her, this means organizing movements for reproductive justice, climate justice, and decolonization.

Alison is very grateful for working with organizations she believes in. Prior to joining the Ash Center at Harvard Kennedy School, she brought to life impactful communications campaigns at justice-driven nonprofits such as What Design Can Do, Fossil Free Culture NL, and the National Network of Abortion Funds.

Alison holds a Research Masters from the University of Amsterdam’s Institute of Logic, Language, and Computation, where she published her thesis on time and its colonial applications past and present. She completed her Bachelors in Mathematics and Philosophy at Boston University, where she was awarded the Karbank Fellowship in Philosophy. As a recipient, Alison participated in the 13th gathering of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers in Libreville, Gabon.

Erica Licht

IARA Research Projects Director

Erica Licht has been engaged in racial equity and organizational change research and training for over 15 years. She is currently Research Project Director at the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project (IARA) at Harvard University where she leads and co-designs IARA’s projects and partnerships. Erica is a Fulbright Scholar, and holds a Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Masters in Justice Policy from the London School of Economics where she was a Maguire Fellow.

Prior to IARA, Erica served as Assistant Director at the Center on Culture, Race, and Equity at Bank Street College in New York City, and as a Fellow with Race Forward and the Government Alliance for Racial Equity. Her career has focused on collaborative community and institutional change programs globally, including consulting with the Center for Creative Leadership in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Lemann Foundation in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Lagos State University and Alternatives to Violence International in Lagos, Nigeria.

Erica is an expert facilitator, and has taught course work on justice reform at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and on adaptive leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NYAEYC). She currently co-hosts the podcast Untying Knots.

Dr. Miriam Aschkenasy

IARA Program Director

Dr. Miriam Aschkenasy is a former Emergency Medicine physician and expert in program operations. She holds a Doctor of Medicine, Master’s in Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Aschkenasy has worked extensively within academic institutions and national and international organizations executing and building new programing. She was pivotal in the creation of a new Humanitarian Public Health program at Oxfam American and Global Disaster Response division at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Her work in the humanitarian sector also centered on accountability and outcomes evaluations. She currently sits on the Select Board for the Town of Brookline. Her role is to oversee operations for the IARA project, including working towards its research goals, supporting the team members in their work, and attending to all operational issues related to the program.

Dr. Gloria Yayra A. Ayee

IARA Senior Research Fellow & Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy

Dr. Gloria Yayra A. Ayee is a Lecturer in Government and International Relations at Harvard (DCE), and a Senior Research Fellow with the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. At IARA she leads the Kellogg Foundation funded initiative on “Global Racial Justice, Truth-Telling and Healing.”

Ayee is a political scientist with expertise in behavior and identity politics, and race and ethnic politics. She has taught courses at Harvard College and at the Harvard Extension School. Her research and teaching interests center on American politics, comparative politics, human rights, transitional justice, truth and reconciliation commissions, race and civil rights policy, political reconciliation, media policy and politics, politics and popular culture. Ayee earned her Ph.D. in Political Science and a Graduate Certificate in African and African American Studies from Duke University. She also holds Master’s degrees in Political Science and Liberal Studies, both from Duke University. Her Bachelor’s degree is in English Literature from Dordt University.

Kerri Ratcliffe

IARA Senior Research Fellow

Kerri Ratcliffe has had a long career in finance, environmental protection, literacy advocacy and service, and more recently has been immersed in racial equity policy studies and institutional change. Her research has been conducted in collaboration with the Institutional Anti-Racism and Accountability Project at the Ash Center at Harvard Kennedy School.

Kerri completed the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard in 2018 as a Partner. She was formerly Deputy Commissioner of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection – in charge of all water and natural resource programs, public lands, environmental justice, wildlife management and coastal regulations.  Prior to her government service, she was Vice President at Morgan Stanley specializing in Commodity Finance. Kerri also lived in London, UK for 18 years. While in London, she worked with literacy programs focused on under-resourced and recent immigrant communities. Kerri holds a Master in Public Administration degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Government Affairs at Syracuse University and a BA from Brown University.

Ángel R. Rodríguez

IARA Research Associate

Ángel Rodríguez coordinates the Health Equity research area. 

Under this area, Angel manages the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant for Antiracist Interventions in Healthcare project. This project aims to establish an antiracist framework for evaluating institutional and organizational change in the healthcare sector. Through library and case studies, the objective is to provide a systematic understanding of the uses and opportunities for antiracist interventions across hospitals, public health agencies, and professional associations. 

As a second project, Angel’s is developing a sustainability roadmap for revitalizing Brownfield properties into Digital-Energy campuses. This policy-driven strategy was designed as a Covid-19 resilient and recovery framework for fostering a community of practice that facilitates learning and equity implementation at the municipal level. The project is currently titled: Brownfield Data Center Theory and was most recently announced at the 2022 Data Center Sustainability Summit under the General Service Administration (GSA) and the Department of Energy (DOE). 

Angel has a background in History, Public Health, and Sustainable Science Policy, especially in Geothermal (renewables) Energy.

Komala Anupindi

Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School

Komala Anupindi graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Health Policy and an interest in how to best disseminate equitable healthcare in the United States that results in the best long-term health outcomes. At the Kennedy School, she is focused on understanding the intersecting fields of community-based work, social policy, and preventative medicine to reimagine the best healthcare system. In the future, she is interested in pursuing an M.D./Ph.D. in the History of Medicine and plans on pursuing a career in primary care medicine to ensure that patients’ histories are prioritized and care is delivered to each patient.

Cassandra Duchan Saucedo

Joint-degree MBA/MPP at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School

Cassandra Duchan Saucedo was born and raised in Aurora, Colorado (on occupied Ute land), the proud daughter of a Black American father and a Mexican American mother. Her grandparents were all migrant workers who had to move to create better lives for her parents, who created a better life for her. 

Before returning to school, she was an economic researcher at the Federal Reserve, a social entrepreneur, and a program manager at Google.Org. Now, she is a potter, labor rights enthusiast, and proud generalist who wants to improve the world. Currently, she is working on creating vehicles for business collective ownership for Black and Latina women in the US. Additionally, she loves camping, botany, and exploring the world with her dog Florecita.

Clare Fisher

Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School

Clare Fisher is a first-year Master in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, concentrating in Social & Urban Policy. Her work at HKS focuses on community-based approaches to improving equity and violence reduction. Prior to HKS, Clare worked as a project manager and research assistant at Mathematica Policy Research. She is from Boston, Massachusetts, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Northwestern University. 

Drisana Hughes

Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School

Drisana Hughes is a campaign strategist and policy professional with extensive experience in policy research, quantitative and qualitative research, organizing and campaign management.

Ayesha Islam

Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School

Ayesha Islam is a Bangladeshi American Muslim researcher, writer, and former public servant from Queens, New York. Ayesha previously worked for the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy research organization. Ayesha’s projects at Urban focused on structural racism, economic mobility, and immigration. She was also an NYC Urban Fellow for the New York City Department of Small Business Services, where she supported the creation of programs to reduce disparities in economic opportunity for Black entrepreneurs. Ayesha graduated with a BA in political science from Bryn Mawr College.

LaShyra (Lash) Nolen  

Dual-degree MD/MPP at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government

LaShyra Nolen, known as “Lash”, is a future healer, writer, activist, and dual-degree MD/MPP student at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she serves as student council president of my medical school class—the first documented Black woman to hold this leadership position. She is also the Founding Executive Director of We Got Us, a community empowerment organization committed to increasing vaccine and healthcare access for marginalized communities. She is a passionate advocate for equity and social justice and seeks to live out this mission through healing, advocacy, writing, and public policy.

Nick Spragg  

Master of Theological Studies, Religion, Ethics, and Politics

Nick Spragg is a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School (2022), with a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Art History. As an IARA technical writer, Nick is passionate about organizational transformation, psychological safety, and measuring diversity, equity, and inclusion interventions. Nick has worked as a research assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation as well as the Bloomberg Center for Cities. In 2023, Nick was a Symposium Curator with MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and is currently completing an internship at the United Nations Development Program as an Islamic Finance and Impact Investing Researcher.

Roderick Taylor

Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School

Prior to HKS and IARA, Roderick worked as a researcher at National Skills Coalition, on the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition, Urban Institute, and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from The University of Texas at Austin.

Sabrina Wong

Joint-degree MBA/MPP at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School

Sabrina Wong grew up in a Cambodian refugee family and is passionate about leveraging data and strategy to advocate for refugee rights. She is currently pursuing a joint-degree at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. Prior to graduate school, Sabrina worked as a strategist at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where she collaborated with technical experts on climate, education, and reproductive health initiatives. Sabrina graduated from Harvard College with a concentration in Economics and a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, & Rights. She is currently focused on sharing stories at the intersection of migration status, gender, and race as a staff writer at Mochi Magazine and has published her work in The New York Times.

Brian Xu    

Master of Public Policy

Brian Xu is currently completing a Master of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and a Doctor of Law at Stanford Law School. Prior to this, Brian has completed internships at USAID, the office of U.S. Representative Judy Chu (D-CA), The Wilson Center, and Bain & Company.