Biography

Keesha M. Middlemass, Ph.D., is a (Full) Professor in the Department of Political Science at Howard University and is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution. 

She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in public policy, politics and punishment, and American Politics.

Dr. Middlemass studies the intersection of race, public policy, institutions, and how policies impact marginalized communities, particularly those who are justice impacted. Using mixed methods and interdisciplinary frameworks, including ethnography, interviews, focus groups, and archival research to support her research, she combines first person narratives with analyses of politics and policies to explore who benefits and who is burdened by a range of public policies. Middlemass focuses specifically on questions about the politics of punishment, racial justice, and the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated adults to understand lived experiences to develop policy alternatives to reduce harm(s) while increasing benefits for marginalized population. 

In her award winning book, Convicted & Condemned: The Politics and Policies of Prisoner Reentry (NYU Press, 2017), she makes a significant interdisciplinary contribution by applying social disability theory to prisoner reentry, politics, policies, and race. As an interdisciplinary and multi-layered examination of prisoner reentry, the in-depth analysis demonstrates that public policies create perverted incentives for men and women convicted of a felony who are attempting to reenter society. She is the Principal Investigator (PI) of a three-year grant funded study to examine clean slate laws in Virginia.

In a second line of interdisciplinary research, Dr. Middlemass examines food insecurity, mental health, and SNAP benefit useage in the returning prison population. Using psychological tools and assessments to better understand the intersections of physical and mental health and well-being upon returning home and understanding the structural impediments to reentry successfully.

Dr. Middlemass has written or edited three books and authored dozens of peer reviewed articles published in Punishment & Society, Aggressive Behavior, The Prison Journal, Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Feminist Formations, Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention, and Public Health Nutrition. She has also published several peer-reviewed chapters. 

As a Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Dr. Middlemass has published several blogs about the intersection of politics and policy, and she is the Co-Director of Uprooted: Rediscover-ing American History. Uprooted is a new Brookings series that examines the major contributions of individuals and groups from marginalized communities and how they have shaped America’s institutions, policies, and politics. Through evidence-based analysis tied to social policies, Uprooted is ensuring that the past is not erased and that the national story of racial equity, social justice, and lived realities are kept alive in today’s policy solutions.

Dr. Middlemass is a member of the Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice Network (RDCJN), a former Andrew Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow on Race, Crime and Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City, and is a former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow.

Dr. Middlemass earned a M.A. (American Politics) and Ph.D. (Public Policy, American Politics & Public Administration) from The School of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia.