Our Team
Gabrielle Filip-Crawford, PhD (Social Psychology)
Gabrielle pursued a PhD to work in policy research, took a seven-year detour into academia, and finally found that policy research career after leaving her tenure-track position in 2022. Along the way, she developed a way to use her passion for mentoring and community building to support others transitioning out of academia, founding the peer support group Recovering Academics.
Gabrielle now provides behind-the-scenes research and data work that supports the programs and people that work to improve social policy at Social Policy Research Associates. When she isn’t building surveys or analyzing data, she is busy parenting her five-year-old and exploring Minnesota from a kids-eye view. She enjoys cooking, gardening, and all things nerdy — board games, sci-fi, and fantasy.
Jessica Shropshire, PhD (Social Psychology)
Jessica’s journey outside academia began when it became clear she didn’t have the CV to secure a tenure-track job, and was too burned out to try. She knew she loved research and the time spent in office hours with students, but not much else. With help from mentors and friends, she realized she could pursue all of these passions in roles outside the traditional tenure track.
Now, she does research for a leadership institute at Cornell and for various consulting clients. Plus, she is a career coach for those struggling to find their own path, just as she once did. When she isn’t working, she enjoys nurturing her artistic side by painting, making ceramics, and buying way too much thrifted and vintage clothing. And, she enjoys being outside in nature, mostly during summer months, because upstate NY (if you know, you know).
Christina M. Spiker, PhD (Visual Studies)
Christina is a regular jill-of-all-trades with one foot in academia and one foot in various other creative projects. When she isn’t practicing technological wizardry for Next Draft LLC, she teaches undergraduate courses in art history, Asian studies, museum studies, and first-year writing. Her desire not to uproot her family led her to pursue teaching outside the tenure track.
Christina enjoys curating exhibitions, mentoring, and being way too picky about the formatting of her PowerPoint slides. She balances her relationship with academia with projects that actively engage her creativity. She finds ways to engage with art even when you would least expect it! When she isn’t working, she enjoys exploring her adopted state of Minnesota, making music videos, antiquing, and caring for her menagerie of pets.