Janeria Easley, a sociologist, recently joined the faculty of Emory University as an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies. She began her position in 2019, after completing a three-year Vice-Provost Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Sociology and Population Studies Center. Easley investigates factors that create both inequality, such as residential segregation, gentrification, and intergenerational mobility, and outcomes, such as earnings, home ownership, and wealth attainment. Her work recently received funding through the Russell Sage Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation inaugural Pipeline Grants Competition.

Her experiences before arriving at Princeton introduced Easley to issues of inequity. Pre-school in Trenton, elementary school in the Olney section of Philadelphia, middle school in Great Falls, South Carolina, and then back to Trenton for high school — all of these moves were spurred by her family’s pursuit of more economic stability and opportunity. Living in these vastly different places has shaped her passion for furthering the understanding of stratification.

Initially interested in law as a career, and in spite of minimal college counseling assistance, Easley successfully applied to Duke University and majored in sociology and English. She found that her interests pivoted from law, however, when she enrolled in a pre-doctoral summer research experience. The program explored careers in higher ed research, including approaches to analysis and presentation. She realized that constructing narratives about barriers to access for disadvantaged populations could be just as rewarding as constructing narratives about legal cases.

Easley chose Princeton for her doctoral work as its sociology department has leading scholars in racial stratification. She concentrated in demography, writing her dissertation on “Hidden Inequality in Job Access: The Role of Residential Segregation in Spatial Mismatch.” For two years she was a preceptor for Professor Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, and in 2014 she was a preceptor for Professor Douglas Massey’s course “Race and Public Policy.”

Committed to “creating meaningful and supportive programming for my peers,” Easley was on the Diversity Council and was one of four graduate students appointed by the dean to serve on the Task Force on the Direction of the Graduate School. She was also a Diversity Fellow and a member of the Special Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. For two years she served as vice president of the Black Graduate Caucus and for three years, co-coordinator of the Graduate Women of Color Caucus.

One of her central experiences at Princeton, Easley found, was working with the Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), the academic enrichment program that supports high-achieving, low-income high school students from local New Jersey districts. She taught in the weekly program during the academic year and in the summer as the writing instructor for rising sophomores. “Some of the most inspiring, intelligent young people I know came to me by way of PUPP,” she recalls. “I am honored to stay in touch with many of these students.” As she looks back on her time at Princeton, Easley offers that “the opportunity to pursue my Ph.D. at Princeton after my undergraduate time at Duke, and to have lived in neighborhoods plagued by lack of resources, solidified my interests in mobility and equality of opportunity as well as my understanding of how access looks drastically different across the U.S. I am grateful for all the spaces I have had the privilege to be a part of. In particular, I am grateful for my time at Princeton, as it taught me both how best to use my voice as well as how to listen, two traits I see as equally important.”