Rashawn Ray


Rashawn Ray is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. Since 2017 he has been the editor of Contexts magazine, published by the American Sociological Association, with co-editor Fabio Rojas.

Career

Ray graduated from Indiana University, Bloomington, with a Ph.D. in sociology in 2010. He joined the sociology faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park after serving as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy research scholar at the University of California, Berkeley from 2010 to 2012. His work pertains to social inequality and focuses on race and social activism. He is the author of Race and Ethnic Relations in the 21st Century: History, Theory, Institutions, and Policy.

Awards

In 2016, Ray won University of Maryland's Research Communicator Impact Award. He also has been awarded mentorship awards from the Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars Program and the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program. Furthermore, he has received the Teaching in Excellence Award from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland.

Public work

Ray has written several articles for The New York Times on a wide range of social topics including race and policing, healthcare, parenting styles, and more. He has been featured in many news and media reports.