Erica Jacqueline Licht has been engaged in racial equity and organizational change research and training for over 15 years. She is Research Projects Director at the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project (IARA) at Harvard University where she leads and co-designs IARA’s projects and partnerships. Erica is a Fulbright Scholar, and holds a Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Masters in Justice Policy from the London School of Economics where she was a Maguire Fellow.

Prior to IARA, Erica served as Assistant Director at the Center on Culture, Race, and Equity at Bank Street College in New York City, and as a Fellow with Race Forward and the Government Alliance for Racial Equity. Her career has focused on collaborative community and institutional change programs globally, including consulting with the Center for Creative Leadership in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Lemann Foundation in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Lagos State University and Alternatives to Violence International in Lagos, Nigeria.

Erica is a Lecturer at the Harvard Extension School, and has taught coursework at the Harvard Kennedy School and University of the West Indies, Mona. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, CNN.com, and Learning for Justice Magazine. Her essay on the benefits of diversity programs at universities will be published in the forthcoming book The Conversation on Higher Education (John Hopkins University Press, 2024).

Erica cares deeply about her Jewish identity as a cornerstone for her engagement in community organizing and proudly serves on the Board of the Haymarket People’s Fund, as a coordinator for Kavod, a Boston-based Jewish social justice group, and as a Facilitator with the Jewish Studio Project.

She co-hosts the podcast Untying Knots.