Tressie McMillan Cottom is an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of Lower Ed and Thick (The New Press). Her work has been featured by The Daily Show, the New York Times, the Washington Post, PBS, NPR, Fresh Air, and The Atlantic, among others. In 2020, McMillan Cottom was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.