Bridgette Davis is an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned her PhD in social welfare policy as well as a certificate of Education Sciences through IES predoctoral training at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago. She was also a two-time Point Foundation Scholar. Her research focuses on the organizational policies and practices that reproduce or challenge social, racial, and economic inequality among U.S. youth as they navigate the transition to adulthood. Bridgette began graduate study at the University of Chicago in 2014 after being inspired by her students who were attending the nations’ best colleges and universities. As an out, queer middle and high school educator of more than ten years and a first-generation college graduate herself, “Ms. Davis” led her more than one-thousand students in Atlanta and Chicago to achieve meaningful academic gains and successfully transition to college.
At the University of Chicago, Bridgette earned her master’s degree in social work and was named the Wilma Rudolph Award Winner for promise as a scholar in the field of social welfare. Bridgette serves on multiple community and University advisory boards and volunteers numerous hours per week in service to local schools and community organizations. As a doctoral student, her work has been funded by awards from the Milgrom Pathways from School to Work grant. With a continued enthusiasm for teaching focused on equity, Bridgette teaches courses on organizational theory, social and educational policy at the Crown Family School and Power, Identity, Resistance in the social science core curriculum at the College.
She is currently completing a dissertation study in which she is following 31 first-generation college students through their first two years of life after high school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bridgette currently lives and works on the South Side of Chicago with her wife, Ellen, and her Lakeland Terrier, Vida.