Tressie McMillan Cottom is a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a New York Times opinion columnist, and the author of Lower Ed and Thick (The New Press). Her work has been featured by The Daily Show, 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.