The Samuel DuBois Cook Center is a scholarly collaborative that studies the causes and consequences of inequality and develops remedies for these disparities and their adverse effects.
Cook Center Faculty Affiliate Fenaba R. Addo, Ph.D., recently coauthored a review article in the Annual Review of Sociology that explores the racialized dynamics of debt and wealth in the United States. The paper synthesizes various categories of research that examine the sources of racial disparities in wealth and debt, and it explores how these disparities reflect…
Pop quiz: You’re a junior economics professor who’s about to go up for tenure. How should you pick your potential reviewers so that your odds of success are highest? How do (or even how can) you balance the big three of teaching, research, and service to the profession? And, most importantly, where do you find…
Faculty Affiliate John Purakal was recently featured in Duke Today as one of the three recipients of the 2025 Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award. Purakal is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. His research interests include social drivers of health, racial & ethnic disparities of emergency care, and cardiovascular disease….
Founding Director William A. Darity Jr. was interviewed for a Forbes Talk by Ali Jackson-Jolley to discuss what economic freedom looks like in 2026. Dr. Darity is one of the leading voices in academia advancing the case for Black reparations in the U.S. He co-authored From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the…
A recent feature highlighted how Kisha N. Daniels, associate professor of the practice in education, continues to expand the reach of her service‑learning course, The Critical Pedagogy of Hip Hop, through community‑centered partnerships with Durham Public Schools. The story follows a semester‑long collaboration between Daniels’ Duke students and 11th graders at Jordan High School, culminating…
A study coauthored by faculty affiliates Joaquin Alfredo‑Angel Rubalcaba and Alberto Ortega explore the effectiveness of worker‑driven social responsibility programs on infant health outcomes in migrant farmworker communities. Published in Demography, the research examines whether the Fair Food Program, a worker‑rights initiative supported by corporate premiums, has had measurable health impacts on the communities it…
