Rucker Johnson

Rucker Johnson is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. A labor economist specializing in the economics of education, his work examines the role of poverty and inequality in shaping life outcomes. He was inducted as the Sir Arthur Lewis Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education. He is also a recipient of the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. His research has been published in leading academic journals, featured in mainstream media, and presented in policy briefings at the White House and on Capitol Hill. He is the author of Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works. At UC Berkeley, he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in applied econometrics and race, poverty, and inequality. Johnson earned a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan.

updated 2025