Seleeke Flingai,
Social researcher and data curator,
Chicago, Illinois

I am a researcher working at the intersection of data, social policy, and justice. Currently, I am a senior associate with the National Equity Atlas team at PolicyLink, where I help lead research engagements with community partners and develops rigorous analyses, reports, and other data tools to support community-led struggles for greater equity.

I am also a Lecturer/Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, where I've designed and taught the Master of Public Health seminar course "Race and Public Health". The semester-long course provides a broad overview of the social conditions that engender racial health disparities in the United States, focusing on the impacts of racism and capitalism.

Prior to PolicyLink, I was a senior research associate with the Reshaping Prosecution program at the Vera Institute of Justice, where I used quantitative methods to describe how the criminal legal system in general, and prosecution in particular, have maintained or exacerbated racial inequality in American society.

Before that, I worked as a research analyst at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the planning agency of the Greater Boston region. At MAPC, I used quantitative and spatial data to investigate the various manifestations of racialized inequities in the Greater Boston region, with a focus on residential displacement, housing markets, and social vulnerability.

Ultimately, I am interested in the relationship between the built environment, health inequities, race/racism, and justice.

I earned my MPA in Domestic Policy (with a certificate in Urban Policy and Planning) in 2018 from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. Before that, I obtained a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2016 from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and received my S.B. from MIT in 2011, where I majored in Brain and Cognitive Sciences.