About

Khalil Gibran Muhammad

IARA Director and Professor of African American Studies and Public Affairs

Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the inaugural Professor of African American Studies and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where he directs the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project. He is Board Chair of the Vera Institute of Justice, and a WGBH contributor to Boston Public Radio. He is the former Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and 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. He co-hosted the Pushkin Industries podcast Some of My Best Friends Are.

Khalil’s scholarship examines the broad intersections of systemic racism, structural inequality, and democracy in U.S. History. He is the award-winning author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America and recently co-chaired a National Academies of Science study, Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice. 

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 Associate Director

Alison Pasquariello is the Associate Director of the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project. She oversees the project’s strategic development and day-to-day operations.

Alison was taught to think ahead toward the next seven generations. For her, this means organizing movements around reproductive justice, climate justice, and decolonization. Alison is very grateful for working with organizations she believes in. Prior to joining the IARA Project, 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 a recipient of the Karbank Fellowship in Philosophy.

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.