Megan Ming Francis is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Political Science and Law, Societies, and Justice at the University of Washington. During the 2020-21 academic year, she is also a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and a Racial Justice Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School. Formerly, she was a research fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute at the NAACP-LDF. Francis specializes in the study of American politics, with broad interests in constitutional law, Black political activism, critical philanthropy, and the post-civil war South. She is the author of the award winning book, Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State. And recently led her students in the development of a widely listened to podcast ‘Philanthropy and Social Movements.’ Her research and commentary have been featured on ABC, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, LA Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Seattle Times, and she has conducted a TED talk with over two million views.