Part 1 of SPIA in NJ's Fall 2024 series, New Jersey and the American Economy: What’s Needed for the Garden State to Lead a Thriving Country.

The concept of reparative justice has taken hold in various policy circles, but with so much to heal and repair, how do we make progress without feeling overwhelmed? As the old saying goes, you can’t eat a whole elephant in one bite. This conversation will explore how America’s and New Jersey’s economies withhold opportunity, why it’s been difficult to address what’s broken, and what we can do to fix it so all residents can thrive.

Adam Goldstein is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed in the Department of Sociology and the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He currently holds the Ralph O. Glendinning University Preceptorship. Prior to coming to Princeton he earned a PhD in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and was a Robert Wood Johnson Post-Doctoral Scholar in Health Policy Research at Harvard. His areas of interest include economic sociology, organizations, and social stratification. His current research examines the social consequences of financial capitalism for institutions, households, organizations, and inequality in the United States.

Marleina Ubel is a Senior Research Analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP), where she researches the criminal legal system with a focus on alternatives to policing that center restorative justice. Previously, Marleina was NJPP’s 2020-2021 Kathleen Crotty Fellow where she analyzed the state budget process and researched public spending on state and local law enforcement. Marleina began her undergraduate work at Valencia College and earned a transfer scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned a B.A. in Philosophy. As a PIKSI fellow, she spent a summer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology challenging demographic disparities in institutions of higher learning. In 2021, she earned her M.S.W. in Management and Policy at Rutgers University and served as an Eagleton Fellow in the New Jersey Assembly Majority Office.

Felicia Wong is President & CEO of the The Roosevelt Institute, where she directs the organization’s mission, vision, and strategy in pursuit of a high-care, low-carbon economy that works for all. She was the US representative on the G7 Economic Resilience Panel in 2021, served on the Biden-Harris administration transition advisory board, and currently serves as vice chair of the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity. Since Felicia joined the Roosevelt Institute in 2012, she and the team have quadrupled the overall budget and made Roosevelt a key collaborator with the nation’s top public officials, academic experts, and progressive movement organizers. Felicia’s research focuses on post-neoliberal thought and the intersection of race, economics, and social stratification; her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and the Boston Review. She co-hosted the podcast How to Save a Country (external link) and is co-author of the book The Hidden Rules of Race: Barriers to an Inclusive Economy (external link) (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Before joining Roosevelt, Felicia ran investment services for the Democracy Alliance and operations and product development at a venture-funded, labor union–aligned education services company. Her public service includes a White House fellowship in the Office of the Attorney General and a political appointment in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. She serves on the boards of the Economic Security Project and Deep Springs College. Felicia holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Moderator: Brandon McKoy is President of The Fund for New Jersey and an established leader in state policy analysis and advocacy in New Jersey and nationwide. He completed his bachelor’s degree at The College of New Jersey and earned a master’s degree from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Brandon worked as a Program Associate at The Fund for New Jersey and served as its first philanthropy fellow from 2012-2014. He then went on to spend more than seven years at New Jersey Policy Perspective in several roles, first as a State Policy Fellow through the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ program, then as a Policy Analyst, and then as Director of Government and Public Affairs, before assuming leadership of the organization as NJPP’s President for nearly 3 years. In 2024, Brandon rejoined The Fund for New Jersey as President, after more than two years at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, DC, where he was Vice President for state partnerships and co-leader of the State Fiscal Policy Division. He is a lifelong New Jerseyan who was born in Secaucus, raised in South Orange, and now resides with his family in Hunterdon County.

Co-sponsored by: Department of African American Studies, Princeton Public Lectures, The Program for Research on Inequality, Labyrinth Books, and Princeton Public Library.