John Major Eason

John is the Director and Founder of the Justice Labs of America (formerly UWJL). He is an Associate Professor, Watson Institute & Department of Sociology, at Brown University and a Senior Fellow/Equity Scholar at the Urban Institute. He is the author of Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation. As a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was the Founder/Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Justice Lab and a founding member of the UW pancreas cancer data group with Oncologist Noelle LoConte. He recently served as a member of the University at Buffalo’s Center for Diversity Innovation's Distinguished Visiting Scholars 2020-21. From 2010-2013, he was an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Arizona State University before moving to the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M from 2013-2017. Before receiving an M.P.P. & Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, he worked as a community organizer and served as a political organizer most notably for then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama.