Erica Gabrielle Foldy

Professor Foldy is an Associate Professor of Public and Nonprofit Management at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University where she leads the Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy Program and co-directs the Capstone program. She is affiliated Faculty with the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons School of Management in Boston. 

Professor Foldy''s research addresses the question: What enables and inhibits collaboration and learning across potential divisions like race and gender, profession or differences of opinion? She is interested in how our identities (like race or gender), frames (such as color blindness or color cognizance), and learning behaviors (such as reflection) affect our ability to connect with others. Her work embeds these influences in broader organizational and social contexts by exploring leadership, safety climate and power dynamics.

Professor Foldy is co-author, with Tamara Buckley, of the book The Color Bind: Talking (and not Talking) about Race at Work, published by Russell Sage. She also co-edited, with Robin Ely and Maureen Scully, the Reader in Gender and Organizations.  In addition, she has more than forty papers in a variety of journals and edited volumes. Her research and expertise has been featured in the Washington Post, CNN.com, Money.com and other media outlets.  Many of her publications are available at researchgate.net. 

Prior to her PhD program, Professor Foldy worked for 15 years with nonprofit organizations addressing foreign policy, women’s rights, and occupational health and safety. She has consulted on strategic planning, organization development, and diversity and inclusion to a wide range of groups and agencies. She holds a BA from Harvard College and a PhD from Boston College, was a Post Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School and a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. 

Areas of Expertise

Inequality

Leadership

Management

Power

Public & Nonprofit Organizations

Race, Class, Gender & Diversity