Sara Partridge, Ph.D., joins American Progress from the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), where she conducted higher education policy research for the Dr. N. Joyce Payne Center for Social Justice. As a research fellow and a research program manager at TMCF, she researched and wrote about issues such as higher education affordability and institutional equity for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). She also managed grant programs that supported and brought greater visibility to faculty research at HBCUs. During her time at TMCF, she developed a strong commitment to minority-serving institutions, public education, and racial equity in education.
Partridge earned her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University (NYU) in September 2020, where she studied the history of social justice movements in early American literature. As a graduate instructor and postdoctoral teaching fellow at NYU, she gained firsthand experience with pedagogy, student success, and inclusion in higher education. Partridge has additional professional experience in book publishing and at humanitarian organizations, and she earned her bachelor’s degree in English, magna cum laude, from Columbia University.