Dominique Apollon, Ph.D., Research Director, is a graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A., American Government, 1996), and received his doctorate in political science from Stanford University in 2003.  His dissertation, “Relieving the Toxic Burden?: Race, Hazardous Wastes, and the Politics of the Environmental Justice Movement” examined the distribution of toxic wastes in the state of California from 1989-1999, as well as the corresponding grassroots political activity and participation.  Dom has taught undergraduate seminars on the politics of race/ethnicity at Stanford University and Santa Clara University, and served as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at California State University, Bakersfield, where he taught courses on U.S. Constitutional Law, Introductory American Politics, Environmental Politics, Congress, and the Presidency from 2004-2007.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Dom served as program coordinator for the 1999 Stanford University Conference on Race, “African Americans: Research and Policy Perspectives at the Turn of the Century,” and has presented research at conferences and institutions of higher learning in Albuquerque, NM, Chicago, IL, Des Moines, IA, New Haven, CT, Pomona, CA, and Riverside, CA among other U.S. cities.  He has participated in public forums and discussions on state elections, civil rights, civil liberties, environmental degradation and policy, and youth political mobilization.  An alumnus of the American Political Science Association’s Ralph Bunche Summer Institute (1995), he was also an award-winning opinion page columnist at The Cavalier Daily newspaper in Charlottesville, VA.<

Dom currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the San Quentin Prison-based non-profit organization California Reentry Program. 

He has co-authored such ARC reports as Don't Call them "Post-Racial":Millenials Attitudes on Race, Racism and Key Systems in Our Society (June 2011), The Color of Food (February 2011), Better Together: Research Findings on the Relationship between Racial Justice Organizations and LGBT Communities (September 2010), Underprotected, Undersupported: Low-Income Children at Risk (April 2009), and Check the Color Line - 2009 Income Report (February 2009).