M.V. Lee Badgett

M. V. Lee Badgett, Ph.D. is a Distinguished Scholar at the Williams Institute and a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was the first research director of the Williams Institute. Her current research focuses on economic inequality for LGBT people, including wage gaps, employment discrimination, and poverty, and on the cost of homophobia and transphobia to economies. Lee was an expert witness in the Prop 8 case and in other litigation, and she has testified before Congress and many state legislatures. She is the author of many reports, journal articles, and op-eds, as well as four books. Her latest book, The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All, was published in 2020 by Beacon Press. Lee has a Ph.D. in economics from UC Berkeley and a B.A. from the University of Chicago.