Faith Mitchell is an Institute fellow at the Urban Institute, working with the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy and the Health Policy Center. She oversees Urban’s American Transformation project, which looks at the implications—and possibilities—of this country’s racial and ethnic evolution. Over several decades, her career has bridged research, practice, and social and health policy.
Previously, Mitchell was president and CEO of Grantmakers In Health, a DC-based national organization that advises, informs, and supports the work of health foundations and corporate giving programs. Before that, she held leadership positions at the National Academies (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine), the US Department of State, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation.
Mitchell has a doctorate in medical anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. She has written or edited numerous policy-related publications, in addition to which she is the author of Emma’s Postcard Album, Black Lives in the Early Twentieth Century, a memoir and social history; Hoodoo Medicine, a pioneering study of Black folk medicine; and The Book of Secrets, Part 1, a supernatural thriller. She cochairs the advisory group for the John A. Hartford Foundation and Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, chairs the board of The Jacob & Valeria Langeloth Foundation, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Board on Health Care Services and the editorial board of Health Affairs.