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 written or edited numerous policy-related publications and is the author of Hoodoo Medicine, a groundbreaking study of Black folk medicine; The Book of Secrets, Part 1, a semifactual supernatural thriller; and Emma’s Postcard Album: Black Lives in the Early Twentieth Century, a memoir and social history. 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 and Valeria Langeloth Foundation; serves on advisory committees for the National Collaborative for Health Equity and the University of California, San Francisco, Institute for Health Policy Studies; and serves on the editorial board of Health Affairs. Mitchell has a doctorate in medical anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.