User:Speakwise/Cathy J. Cohen

Cathy J. Cohen (born 1962) is an American author, feminist and social activist whose work has focused on the African American experience in politics from a perspective which is underlined by intersectionality. A former Director of the Center for the Study of Race (2002-2005), she is currently David and Mary Winton Green Professor in Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago. She received her BA from Miami University; Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1993 and began her academic career at Yale University where she received tenure. Professor Cohen joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 2002.

As an academic activist Cohen frequently writes and speaks about gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and their interrelatedness, and connection to power. This approach puts her in a class of leftist intellectuals who work to have social and public policy influence the lives of of marginalized groups in a positive way. Cohen, a black lesbian and a parent, is the principal researcher on the www.blackyouthproject.com, and is the author of Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the future of American politics and boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics among others.

Professor Cohen is one of the founding board members of the Audre Lorde project and is active in a number of organizations working on social justice issues. She moderated the plenary of the Applied Research Center's 2010 conference "Popularizing Racial Justice", and has served as secretary of the American Political Science Association (APSA).