The American Economic Association has recently honored William Darity, Jr. and Margaret Simms with the title of Distinguished Fellow. The title is bestowed annually to no more than four prominent economists of high distinction in the United States and Canada.
William Darity, Jr. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics at Duke University. He also serves as director of the Center on Social Equity. During his tenure with Duke University, he has served in other leadership roles including chair of the department of African and African American studies and founding director of the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality.
Dr. Darity is known for his part in founding the field of stratification economics, which integrates economics, sociology, and social psychology to analyze inequality across socially differentiated groups. His research into economic inequality had led to numerous scholarly publications including his most recent book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2020).
Dr. Darity is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University where he double-majored in economics and political science. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Margaret Simms is a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., where she has worked since 2007. Prior to her tenure with the Urban Institute, she served as vice president for governance and economic analysis at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Earlier in her career she held faculty positions at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Atlanta University, where she served as chair of the department of economics.
Throughout her career, Dr. Simms has conducted extensive research into Black economic well-being. She has served as a consultant to numerous private and public organizations, including the United States Department of State, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. During the 1980s, she served as editor of the academic journal, Review of Black Political Economy.
Dr. Simms earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Carleton College in Minnesota and her Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in California.
