Dr. Grace Gowdy – Senior Researcher, Education Northwest  

Grace Gowdy is passionate about better understanding and improving the lives of young people from minoritized and otherwise marginalized backgrounds. Bringing over 10 years of experience on projects related to young people and their families, she has particular expertise in alternative models to youth mentoring. Motivated to understand community and family influence on individual upward mobility, she is an acknowledged content expert on social capital and informal mentoring for young people, amplifying the important relationships young people have with caring non-parental adults. She earned a Ph.D. in Social Work from Boston University and a Master’s degree in Social Work from Florida State University. 

Dr. Kristian Jones – Assistant Professor, University of Washington  

Kristian’s research examines how youth mentoring relationships can be utilized to prevent adverse outcomes and promote positive strengths for Black youth. As a Black male scholar, his research is grounded in his passion for equity and inclusion, specifically related to marginalized youth and their families. His most recent project seeks to examine how youth mentoring relationships can prevent firearm violence among Black youth. Prior to becoming a faculty member at the University of Washington, Kristian worked as a Foster Care Counselor at Youth Villages in Cookeville, Tennessee and a Community Support Therapist in Stone Mountain, Georgia. He received his Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin, his Master’s of Education in Counseling from Boston University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Albany State University in Albany, Georgia. Kristian was raised in Marietta, Georgia. 

Dr. Aisha Griffith, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois Chicago  

Aisha Griffith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on interactions between teens and nonparental adults in out-of-school time (e.g., after-school, mentoring) and in-school settings by investigating how factors internal and external to youth-adult interactions shape the experiences of teens. She has conducted qualitative research on trusting youth-adult relationships in out-of-school time contexts and explores the nature of Black students’ interactions with school adults, particularly Black girls’ experiences. She has published her research in developmental psychology and youth development journals as well as being featured in spaces for practitioners. She is the program coordinator of UIC’s Youth Development Masters program.