Keynote Speakers
Mesmin Destin
Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Professor of Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University
Author of forthcoming publication in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology: "From deficit to benefit: Highlighting lower-SES students' background-specific strengths increases their academic persistence"
Social psychologist Mesmin Destin studies how socioeconomic circumstances influence individual thoughts, identities, and behaviors. Building upon theories of identity and motivation, his research investigates social and psychological factors that contribute to disparities in educational outcomes from middle school through early adulthood. He employs a combination of secondary data analysis, laboratory experiments, and field experiments to uncover effective strategies and supports that guide young people’s perceptions of self, society, and opportunities as they navigate inequality and pursue goals.
Destin’s research has been funded by organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation. He contributed to a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine titled, “The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth”, and he has received awards including the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship Award.
Jennifer M. Morton
Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor of Philosophy with a Secondary Appointment at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania
Author of Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility. Previously, Morton held positions at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the City College of New York, the Graduate Center-CUNY, and Swarthmore College. Morton's areas of research are philosophy of action, moral philosophy, philosophy of education, and political philosophy. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and her A.B. from Princeton University.
Morton is interested in how poverty and social class shape our agency. Her book Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility focuses on the ethical sacrifices that first-generation and low-income students make in pursuing upward mobility. It was awarded the Frederic W. Ness Book Award by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and selected as Princeton President Eisgruber’s Pre-Read for the Class of 2025. Morton has also received awards including the American Philosophical Association’s Scheffler Prize and the Australasian Association of Philosophy‘s 2017 Best AJP Paper Award. Her paper Grit, cowritten with the brilliant Sarah Paul, was selected by the Philosopher’s Annual as one of the ten best philosophy papers published in 2019. Morton has also been a Laurance S. Rockefeller Faculty Fellow at the Princeton Center for Human Values.
Receive a discount on Moving Up Without Losing Your Way by using code “MOVIN” at https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179230/moving-up-without-losing-your-way