Erica Gabrielle Foldy

Associate Professor of Public and Nonprofit Management; Co-Director of Capstone Program; Director of Advocacy and Political Action Specialization

212.998.7436
105 East 17th Street
Room 365
New York, NY 10003
Mondays, 5 to 6pm but you must email me beforehand to confirm.
Erica Gabrielle Foldy

Professor Foldy is an Associate Professor of Public and Nonprofit Management at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University where she directs the Advocacy and Political Action Specialization and co-directs the Capstone Program.  

Erica’s research and teaching address the question: What enables and inhibits collaboration and learning across potential divisions?  Most recently, she has focused her work on race and racism in organizations. She is interested in how our identities (such as race), frames (such as color blindness or color cognizance), and learning behaviors (such as reflection) affect our ability to connect with others.  Her research embeds these influences in broader organizational and social contexts by exploring power and leadership.

Erica has conducted research in a wide range of organizations, from large public agencies and community nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies, boutique firms, and health care settings.  She is co-author, with Tamara Buckley, of the book The Color Bind: Talking (and not Talking) about Race at Work and co-editor, with Robin Ely and Maureen Scully, of the Reader in Gender and Organizations.  In addition, she has numerous papers in a variety of outlets, including management, public administration, psychology, social work and medical journals, and various handbooks, encyclopedias, and edited volumes.  Her expertise has been featured in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Vox, Reuters, Bloomberg.com, CNN.com, NBC.com and elsewhere.  

Prior to her PhD program, Erica was an organizer for 15 years on issues related to foreign policy, women’s rights, and labor issues. She has returned to her activist roots more recently, co-leading the NYU Democracy Project, a program that funds students to work in pro-democracy organizations. She has also consulted on strategic planning, organization development, and diversity and inclusion to a range of groups and agencies.

She holds a BA from Harvard College and a PhD from Boston College and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School and a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Erica is a 3-time recipient of the Professor of the Year award, voted by Wagner students, and, in 2023, received NYU's Distinguished Teaching Award.  In 2021, she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. award from NYU.