Erika Weissinger

Erika Weissinger directs the Constructive Dialogue Initiative at GSPP and teaches courses on dialogue, race and public policy, and applied policy analysis. Her teaching and research focus on strengthening democratic practices through dialogue and advancing racial repair.

She is Co-Director of the Black Reparations Project, a collaboration with Mills College at Northeastern University, and serves on Berkeley Unified School District’s Reparations Task Force, as well as the boards of  Waterside Workshops, and Reparation Generation.

Earlier in her career, Erika worked in child welfare, where she contributed to the District of Columbia’s Child and Family Services Agency’s emergence from court receivership. As a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, she co-developed one of the first longitudinal qualitative databases on foster youth, advancing research and practice in the field.

She holds a PhD in Public Policy from UC Berkeley, an MA from Johns Hopkins, and a BA from Pomona College.