Overview
Kay Jowers is Executive-in-Residence and Director of Social Inquiry & Community-Engaged Practice at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. She began her career as a public interest lawyer before turning to political sociology, where her work examines how communities and social movements confront and reshape systems of power. Her research and practice have focused on environmental justice and housing, always in response to community-defined needs. At Kenan, she develops opportunities for undergraduates to engage complexity, listen across divides, and connect scholarship with practice in ways that contribute to the long work of repair.
She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a J.D. and M.S.P.H. from Tulane University, and a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Carolina.
