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Dr. Thomas Shapiro, Director, Institute on Assets and Social Policy and the David R. Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy at The Heller School for Social Policy, Brandeis University. Professor Shapiro's primary interest is in racial inequality and public policy. He is a leader in the wealth and race field with a particular focus on closing the racial wealth gap. With Dr. Melvin Oliver, he wrote the award-winning Black Wealth/White Wealth, which received the 1997 Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award from the American Sociological Association. The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality, 2004, was widely reviewed. He co-authored a groundbreaking study, The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide. In 2011 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study the wealth gap in South Africa.
Dr. Shapiro’s most recent book Toxic Inequality: How America’s Wealth Gap Destroys Mobility, Deepens the Racial Divide, & Threatens Our Future was released in 2017. He has been interviewed by and his work discussed in major media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, CNN, ABC, BBC, MSNBC, NPR. He maintains an active social media presence.