Generate a tailored SOP for Dr. Jovan Lewis. Improve your application with a focused, well-structured draft.
Jovan Scott Lewis is a Professor and Haas Distinguished Chair focused on Economic Disparities at the University of California, Berkeley. His work centers on Black people's lived experiences, economic racial inequality, and reparative frameworks to address disparities. He authored 'Scammer’s Yard: Crime, Black Repair Jamaica' (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and 'Violent Utopia: Dispossession, Black Restoration Tulsa' (Duke University Press, 2022). His research investigates reparations as a means of remedying past harms to foster future Black community development. In 2021, he was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to the State's Reparations Task Force, a government-initiated reparations commission responsible for framing community eligibility and overseeing the development of compensation recommendations. Additionally, he leads a research group of economists and political scientists studying the racial wealth gap in California. Lewis started the Berkeley Black Geographies Project in 2016, which emphasizes the geographic study of Black experience and the racialization central to modern societal organization. His contributions have positioned UC Berkeley as a leading institution in the fields of Black Geographies and Black ecologies.
The Mathematics Subject GRE is required for the Fall 2026 admissions cycle. General GRE is optional.