Damani White-Lewis

Biography

Damani White-Lewis is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies academic jobs, workplaces, and norms in U.S. higher education. He has conducted extensive research on "faculty evaluation" – every university’s complex array of actors and processes that render judgments regarding who gets hired, evaluated properly and well, and ultimately retained – determining who accesses faculty jobs, teaches students, and shapes academic knowledge for years to come. A mixed methodologist, he blends insights from organizational behavior, critical studies, and social psychology to study and improve faculty workplaces.

His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and more. He has won numerous awards from organizations like the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). His scholarship appears in top education journals like The Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, American Educational Research Journal, The International Journal of Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Teachers College Record, and others. He has been featured and quoted in popular outlets such as Science, Nature, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed.

Dr. White-Lewis is a recognized teacher, community member, and speaker. In 2025, he received the Penn GSE Excellence in Teaching Award. The year prior, he received the 2024 Recognition of Outstanding Service Award, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University where he extended his work with the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE). He has spoken to and advised over 50 different colleges and organizations on issues related to the academic profession and institutional change.

Dr. White-Lewis received his Ph.D. in higher education & organizational change (HEOC) from UCLA, his M.A. in higher education from the University of Maryland, College Park, and his B.A. in political science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

Education

Ph.D. (Higher Education & Organizational Change) UCLA, 2019
M.A. (Higher Education) University of Maryland, College Park, 2015
B.A. (Political Science) University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2013

Areas of Expertise

Faculty careers & academe
Racial equity
Organizational behavior
Institutional and departmental change
Experimental and quasi-experimental design
Case study methodology

Links

Download CV

Academic Programs

Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Management, Ed.D.
Higher Education, Ed.D.
Higher Education, M.S.Ed.
Higher Education, Ph.D.

Publications

Faculty Hiring

White-Lewis, D., O’Meara, K., Wessel, J., Anderson, J., Culpepper, D., & Templeton, J. (2024). Making the band: Constructing competitiveness in faculty hiring decisions. Research in Higher Education, 65(6), 1137–1162.
Culpepper, D., White-Lewis, D., O’Meara, K., Templeton, L., & Anderson, J. (2023). Do rubrics live up to their promise? Examining how faculty search committees use rubrics in candidate evaluation and selection. The Journal of Higher Education, 94(7), 823–850.
O’Meara, K., Templeton, L., White-Lewis, D., Culpepper, D., & Anderson, J. (2023). The safest bet: Identifying and assessing risk in faculty selection. American Educational Research Journal, 60(2), 330–366.
White-Lewis, D. (2022). The role of administrative and academic leadership in advancing faculty diversity. The Review of Higher Education, 45(3), 337–364.
White-Lewis, D. (2021). Before the ad: How departments generate hiring priorities that support or avert faculty diversity. Teachers College Record, 123(1).
White-Lewis, D. (2020). The facade of fit in faculty search processes. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(6), 833–857.

Faculty Mentoring

White-Lewis, D., Romero, A., Gutzwa, J., & Hurtado, S. (2022). “Moving the science forward”: Faculty perceptions of culturally diverse mentor training benefits, challenges, and supports. CBE – Life Sciences Education, 21(1), 1–10.
White-Lewis, D., & McLewis, C. (2021). Deeper than the pool: The merit of mentoring in advancing faculty diversity. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, San Juan, PR.
Fries-Britt, S., & White-Lewis, D. (2020). In pursuit of meaningful relationships: How Black males perceive faculty interactions in STEM. The Urban Review, 52(3), 521540.

Faculty Retention

White-Lewis, D., O’Meara, K., Matthews, K., & Havey, N. (2025). Counteroffers for faculty at research universities: Who gets them, who doesn’t, and what factors produce them? Higher Education, 89(2), 535–552.
White-Lewis, D., Culpepper, D., O’Meara, K., Templeton, J., & Anderson, J. (2023). One foot out the door: Interrogating the “risky hire” narrative in STEM faculty careers. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 30(3), 53–74.
White-Lewis, D., O’Meara, K., Mathews, K., & Havey, N. (2022). Leaving the institution or leaving the academy? Analyzing the factors that faculty weigh in actual departure decisions. Research in Higher Education, 64(3), 473–494.
O’Meara, K., Fink, J., White-Lewis, D. (2017). Who’s looking? Examining the role of gender and rank in faculty outside offers. NASPA Journal about Women in Higher Education, 10(1), 64–79.

Departmental, Institutional, and Systemic Change

O’Meara, K., Templeton, L., Culpepper, D., & White-Lewis, D. (2022). Translating equity-minded principles into faculty evaluation reform. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education (ACE).
White-Lewis, D., Bennett, J., & Redd, K. (2022). Framing the dialog for systemic equity reform in STEM faculty careers. Washington, D.C.: Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU).
Cobian, K. P., White-Lewis, D., Hurtado, S., & Ramos, H. V. (2022). Implementing case study design to evaluate diverse institutions and STEM education contexts: Lessons and key areas for systematic study. New Directions for Evaluation: Evaluating a National Biomedical Diversity Initiative.
Hurtado, S., White-Lewis, D., & Norris K. (2017). Advancing inclusive science and systemic change: The convergence of national aims and institutional goals in implementing and assessing biomedical science training. BioMed Central Proceedings, 11(17), 1–13.

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