Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman | |
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Born | 1995or1996(age 27–28) Kumasi, Ghana |
Known for | Sadie Collective Black Birders Week |
Awards | Meyerhoff Scholarship National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Contents
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Academic background | |
Education | University of Maryland, Baltimore County (BA) Harvard Kennedy School (Ph.D. in progress) |
Website | www |
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman (born 1996) is a Ghanaian-born American activist and writer. She is a co-founder and former CEO of the Sadie Collective, as well as a co-founder and co-organizer of Black Birders Week.
Opoku-Agyeman was born in Kumasi, Ghana, and moved to the United States as a child. [1]
Opoku-Agyeman graduated from St. John's Parish Day School in Ellicott City, Maryland in 2007, [2] and from Glenelg Country School, also in Ellicott City, in 2014. [3] In 2019, she earned a B.A. in mathematics with a minor in economics from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). [4] As an undergraduate, Opoku-Agyeman was a Meyerhoff Scholar and NIH MARC U*STAR Scholar, and was enrolled in the UMBC Honors College. [5] [6] [7]
After graduating from college, Opoku-Agyeman attended the American Economic Association’s summer training program, which aims to increase diversity in economics "by preparing talented undergraduates for doctoral programs in economics and related disciplines". [5] [8] She then spent the 2019–2020 academic year enrolled in the Harvard University Research Scholar Initiative postbaccalaureate program. [5] While Opoku-Agyeman was in the Harvard postbaccalaureate program, she was a research assistant to an economics professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education [9] and was affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research. [10] She is currently a doctoral student in Public Policy and Economics at the Harvard Kennedy School [11] as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, [12] a Ford Foundation Graduate Fellow, [13] and a Women and Public Policy Program Doctoral Fellow. [14] In 2023, she was among those selected for Forbes 30 Under 30 Local Boston class. [15]
In 2018, Opoku-Agyeman and Fanta Traore co-founded a nonprofit organization called the Sadie Collective, which aims to increase the number of Black women working in quantitative data fields, including economics, data science, and public policy. [16] [17] [18] [19] The collective offers mentorship and hosts programming, including the annual Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Conference for Economics and Related Fields. [16] [17] [18] Opoku-Agyeman served as the CEO of the organization until March 2021. [1] [10] [19] [20] [21] Several of her published works and media features, which advocate for the advancement and inclusion of black women in economics, have been the result of collaboration with Lisa D. Cook, a Professor of Economics and International Relations at Michigan State University. [10] [22] [23]
In 2020, Opoku-Agyeman co-founded and co-organized Black Birders Week, a series of online events organized to highlight and celebrate Black birders, naturalists, and outdoor enthusiasts. [24] [25] [26] [27] Her aim was to improve the visibility of Black people in non-stereotypical situations, [28] and to advocate for science organizations to give Black people the platform and resources to engage in engagement and outreach activities. [29] [27] [30] Additionally, the inaugural Black Birders Week produced content in collaboration with the National Audubon Society and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. [31]
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, also known as Chicago Booth, is the graduate business school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1898, Chicago Booth is the second-oldest business school in the U.S. and is associated with 10 Nobel laureates in the Economic Sciences, more than any other business school in the world. The school has the third-largest endowment of any business school.
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, was a pioneering Black professional and civil rights activist of the early-to-mid-20th century. In 1921, Mossell Alexander was the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. and the first one to receive one in economics in the United States. In 1927, she was first Black woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and went on to become the first Black woman to practice law in the state. She was also the first national president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, serving from 1919 to 1923.
The Urban Institute is a Washington, D.C.–based think tank that conducts economic and social policy research to "open minds, shape decisions, and offer solutions". The institute receives funding from government contracts, foundations and private donors. The Urban Institute measures policy effects, compares options, shows which stakeholders get the most and least, tests conventional wisdom, reveals trends, and makes costs, benefits, and risks explicit.
The Meyerhoff Scholars Program is a program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) designed to prepare minority students for academic careers in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. The program has served as a model for developing and supporting minority students pursuing academic careers.
Michael Robert Kremer is an American development economist who is University Professor in Economics And Public Policy at the University of Chicago. He is the founding director of the Development Innovation Lab at the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics. Kremer served as the Gates Professor of Developing Societies at Harvard University until 2020. In 2019, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, together with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."
Claudia Goldin is an American economic historian and labor economist who is currently the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. She is a co-director of the NBER's Gender in the Economy Study Group and was the director of the NBER’s Development of the American Economy program from 1989 to 2017. Goldin's research covers a wide range of topics, including the female labor force, the gender gap in earnings, income inequality, technological change, education, and immigration. Most of her research interprets the present through the lens of the past and explores the origins of current issues of concern. Her recently completed book Career & Family: Women's Century-Long Journey toward Equity was released on October 5, 2021.
Robert Butler Wilson, Jr. is an American economist and the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus at Stanford University. He was jointly awarded the 2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, together with his Stanford colleague and former student Paul R. Milgrom, "for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats". Two more of his students, Alvin E. Roth and Bengt Holmström, are also Nobel Laureates in their own right.
Esther Duflo Banerjee, FBA is a French–American economist who is a professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is the co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), which was established in 2003. She shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty".
Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang is a Ghanaian academic and politician who served as Minister for Education from February 2013 to January 2017. She is a full professor of literature. She served as the first female Vice-Chancellor of a state university in Ghana when she took over as Vice-Chancellor of University of Cape Coast. She currently serves as the Chancellor of the Women's University in Africa.
Janet Currie is a Canadian-American economist and the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs, where she is Co-Director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing. She served as the Chair of the Department of Economics at Princeton from 2014–2018. She also served as the first female Chair of the Department of Economics at Columbia University from 2006–2009. Before Columbia, she taught at the University of California, Los Angeles and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was named one of the top 10 women in economics by the World Economic Forum in July 2015. She was recognized for her mentorship of younger economists with the Carolyn Shaw Bell award from the American Economics Association in 2015.
Guido Wilhelmus Imbens is a Dutch-American economist whose research concerns econometrics and statistics. He holds the Applied Econometrics Professorship in Economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he has taught since 2012.
Lisa DeNell Cook is an American economist who has served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors since May 23, 2022. She is the first African American woman and first woman of color to sit on the Board. Before her appointment to the Federal Reserve, she was elected to the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
The Sadie Collective is the first American non-profit organization which aims to increase the representation of African-American women in economics and related fields. It was founded by Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman and Fanta Traore in August 2018 and is named for the first African-American economist, Sadie T. M. Alexander.
Black Birders Week is a week-long series of online events to highlight Black nature enthusiasts and to increase the visibility of Black birders, who face unique challenges and dangers when engaging in outdoor activities. The event was created as a response to the Central Park birdwatching incident and police brutality against Black Americans. The inaugural event ran from May 31 to June 5, 2020. The week of events was organized by a group of STEM professionals and students known as the BlackAFinSTEM collective.
Earyn McGee is an American herpetologist and science communicator. She is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassador and a 2020 AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow. In response to the racism faced by Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper in the Central Park birdwatching incident, McGee co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.
The Women's Institute for Science, Equity, and Race (WISER) is a non-profit, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) research institute that centers Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American and multiracial women in women-focused policy research. Women are often overlooked in research, but even research that accounts for gender discrimination often centers White women. When non-white women are addressed, they are grouped into one category as women of color. WISER counters this methodology, instead proposing a microanalysis approach and the disaggregation of data. This approach aims to improve equity for all women across a variety of social, economic, cultural, and political spheres.
Willene A. Johnson is an American economist who is a former vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, former U.S. Executive Director of the African Development Bank, and a former president of the National Economic Association.
Michelle Holder is an American economist who is an Associate Professor of Economics at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the City University of New York. Her research focuses on discrimination in the workplace and wage gaps between white men and other groups in the United States. In June 2021, she was named president and CEO of The Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Holder stepped down in 2022 from the presidency and transitioned into the role of distinguished senior fellow with the organization through 2023.
Chelsea Connor is a Dominican herpetologist and birder. Her research concerns the interaction between native and introduced Anolis lizards in the Commonwealth of Dominica. While a student, she co-founded #BlackBirdersWeek. She is an advocate for Black people in the United States being out in nature, and feeling safer when they do so.