Grace Gowdy

(she, her, hers)

Senior Researcher

Grace is most passionate about better understanding and improving the lives of young people from minoritized and otherwise marginalized backgrounds. She believes that we have a duty to our society’s young people to understand our decreasing rates of intergenerational upward mobility. She approaches the understanding of social justice through a focus on capabilities, striving for a world in which young people’s adult lives are based on their individual interests and merits and not the oppressive systems they were born into.

Before joining Education Northwest, Grace was an assistant professor in a social work program. In that role, her research focused on how to better understand and improve the lives of young people and their families through a lens of social justice and social capital. In addition to her research program, she taught research methods to both master's and doctoral students. Grace loves talking people through considerations of which research methods would best fit a project and how to think critically about the implications of those choices.

Education

• Ph.D., Social Work, Boston University
• M.S.W., Social Work, Florida State University
• B.A., International Studies, University of North Florida

Is cereal soup? Why?

Absolutely! You cannot define soup in a way that does not qualify cereal.

My favorite vacation spot is...

Any mountain lake anywhere

My favorite villain in a book, movie, or TV show is...

I believe Ursula is deeply misunderstood

Salsa or Guac?

Guac or bust