Rotten and Rat-Infested: The Appalling Food and Healthcare Conditions Facing Inmates in U.S. Prisons
Article about our report Cruel and Usual. We rarely see what goes on inside of U.S. prisons, besides the occasional…
Our Team
Kate Diedrick, MA
Member
Kate Diedrick is a researcher, oral historian, and campaign strategist whose background as a labor organizer enhances her work with unions, housing, and other community organizations tackling social and economic challenges. Now in Atlanta, she has partnered with national and local racial and economic justice organizations in the Southeast, Boston, and Providence. An expert project manager, she draws on a wide-range of research techniques and communication strategies including video. She holds degrees from Grinnell College and Brown University.
Eric Dirnbach, Ph.D
Member
Eric has been a labor movement researcher and campaigner for over 15 years, dedicated to organizing and improving working conditions for workers both nationally and globally. He got his start as an activist while in the leadership of the Graduate Employees Organization and anti-sweatshop movement at the University of Michigan in the 1990’s. He has worked with many labor solidarity organizations and worker centers and is currently on the boards of the International Labor Rights Forum and Labor Research & Action Network. Based in New York City, he has extensive experience in corporate research and campaigning and in the policy areas of trade, procurement, labor standards, and green jobs. He has degrees from Cornell and Michigan.
Biko Koenig, MA
Member
Biko is completing a PhD in Politics at the New School for Social Research on labor and social movements and is on the faculty of a Philadelphia-area university. His current teaching work involves public policy, inequality, and political polarization. Trained in ethnographic, interview- and survey-based research methods, his approach to designing and assessing campaign work is grounded in qualitative, fieldwork-based, and interpretive approaches to problem solving. His ongoing research involves labor-community coalitions that focus on low income workers and public policy.
Abby Scher, Ph.D
Member
Abby is a New York-based sociologist and writer who specializes in creating immensely accessible research so that it will have the greatest impact. As a journalist, her coverage of Labor, economic justice, women’s and immigrant issues appears in national outlets. She is former editorial and interim research director of the progressive think tank Political Research Associates, and a former coeditor of the economic justice magazine Dollars and Sense. The Ford Foundation recognized her cross-community organizing work with its Leadership for a Changing World Award. As a longtime nonprofit professional, she is seasoned in crafting research and editorial tied to organizing campaigns and evaluation. She holds degrees from the University of Chicago and the New School for Social Research.
