Grace is a sociologist who studies mobility and local development via entrepreneurship across different contexts.

Grace is a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She is an incoming assistant professor of social innovation and entrepreneurship at the Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. Grace completed her PhD in sociology at Princeton University on an accelerated track.

Grace began her research journey studying entrepreneurs and investors in global, crossborder contexts between the U.S. and China and is now studying entrepreneurship in America’s most economically distressed communities. Her latest, long-term project draws on the framework of racial capitalism to analyze the dynamics of local community development and revitalization, via entrepreneurship, in disinvested urban and rural communities. This project is motivated by the larger question of, how do we build wealth in disinvested communities?

Grace employs mixed methods in her research, using a combination of ethnography, interview, archival and survey data. Between 2017 and 2021, Grace has worked in a number of entrepreneurial and investment-related contexts in addition to freelance consulting on the side for early-stage founders across a range of industries. She was previously a cofounder for a sustainability startup.

Grace’s research has been supported by various sources, including the Kauffman Foundation. Her work has been recognized and awarded by the American Sociological Association.

Prior to academia, Grace studied politics and economics at Wellesley College and taught in northwest Baltimore through the Teach For America program.