Maya Rockeymoore Cummings

Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings is a political scientist, public health advocate, and social entrepreneur whose career spans more than three decades at the intersection of policy, equity, and innovation. Throughout her career, Rockeymoore Cummings has worked as a congressional staffer, nonprofit leader, public health program director, think tank founder, academic fellow, and entrepreneur. She has served as vice president for programs and research at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, professional staff on the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, chief of staff for former Congressman Charles Rangel, and senior resident scholar for health and income security at the National Urban League think tank. She holds a doctorate in political science with an emphasis in public policy from Purdue University and a bachelor’s degree in political science and mass communications from Prairie View A&M University.

Rockeymoore Cummings founded Global Policy Solutions and the Center for Global Policy Solutions, organizations focused on economic inequality, health disparities, and social insurance policy. As a political scientist, policy analyst, and government affairs expert, she directed strategies to elevate the racial wealth gap on the national policy agenda, led a multi-million dollar leadership initiative to address childhood obesity and promote healthy communities, worked to strengthen and expand Social Security, and conceptualized a pioneering study examining the impact of level 5 autonomous vehicle technology on the U.S. labor market. The Center’s signature initiative, the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative, was a national collaborative whose flagship publication was "Beyond Broke: Why Closing the Racial Wealth Gap is a Priority for National Economic Security."

Rockeymoore Cummings is the author of "RAGEism: Racism, Ageism and the Quest for Liberation Democracy," which introduces the term "rageism" to describe the compounding structural harm produced by the simultaneous operation of racism and ageism across political institutions and public policy. She is also the author of "The Political Action Handbook: A How to Guide for the Hip-Hop Generation" and co-editor of "Strengthening Community: Social Insurance in a Diverse America," in addition to numerous articles and chapters. She is the founder and chief executive officer of HyperVigilant, a health technology company developing artificial intelligence tools to detect and manage cardiometabolic health risks.

Rockeymoore Cummings has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the Democratic National Committee platform committee on Social Security policy. Social Security and retirement security policy have been central themes throughout her career, from her work as a congressional staffer through decades of research, testimony, and public advocacy, including her service as co-chair of the Commission to Modernize Social Security. She has served as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and as a visiting fellow at the Johns Hopkins University SNF Agora Institute. She also served as distinguished presidential research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, conducting research at the intersection of public policy, public health, and equity, and later as a visiting scholar managing the HOPE Challenge policy project and serving as principal investigator of "Tangled in the Web," a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded community-based participatory research study examining patient and caregiver use of digital technology and perceptions of artificial intelligence in medicine.

Rockeymoore Cummings has been recognized as an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow, a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Fellow, and a Woodrow Wilson Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow. Purdue University honored her with its Distinguished Alumni Award. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News, CBS, BET, BBC, Al Jazeera, NPR, and Sirius XM, and her work has been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Fortune, The Atlantic, the Baltimore Sun, USA Today, and the Boston Globe, among other news outlets. Rockeymoore Cummings is known for shaping national conversations on racial equity, economic justice, and the future of public health.