Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana is an assistant professor of sociology at SUNY Albany. Her research focuses on understanding persistent sites of racial inequality including the racial wealth gap, gentrification, and media representations of social problems. She applies the quantitative and spatial data analysis skills she learned in her undergraduate and graduate studies and the qualitative data analysis skills she learned in eight years of evaluation research work at MDRC and the Community College Research Center at Teachers College in her research today. Her work on the racial wealth gap has appeared in Sociological Inquiry and the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, and she coauthored a report on Black women’s wealth published by Urban Institute. Rucks-Ahidiana holds an MPA and a BS in environmental science and policy and a PhD in sociology.