Dr. Faith R. Kares
Senior Director, Research & Impact She/Her
Dr. Faith R. Kares is a social science researcher who specializes in race/ethnicity, social and economic (in)equities, and organizational culture. She has 15+ years of experience conducting mixed-methods research in various contexts, including but not limited to evaluating the efficacy of California’s juvenile justice system, studying the impact of STEM out-of-school time programming on the science and career identities of underrepresented minority youth in Chicago, conducting ethnographic research among working poor families in Metro Manila advocating for affordable housing, and evaluating the operations and practices of the Chicago Police Department as part of the city’s police reform efforts.
Dr. Kares’ work raises questions of power, (in)equity, in/exclusion, and justice. Through an enduring commitment to innovative research design and participatory methodologies, she is dedicated to engaging broader audiences and making research relevant and accessible to all communities. Additionally, she teaches courses in the Honors College at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and provides trainings to nonprofit and local/federal government entities on how to mitigate bias in research. She holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Northwestern University.