M. V. Lee Badgett is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and former director of the School of Public Policy at UMass Amherst. She is also a Williams Distinguished Scholar at UCLA’s Williams Institute, where she was a co-founder and the first research director. Her work as a “public professor” includes analyzing public policies, consulting with regulatory bodies, briefing policymakers, public speaking, and writing op-ed pieces.  She has testified as an expert witness in legislative matters and litigation (including as an expert witness in California’s Prop 8 case). Badgett has been a consultant, advisor, or speaker on LGBTI issues at the World Bank, UN Development Programme (where she helped develop the LGBTI Inclusion Index), USAID, U.S. Department of State, OECD, ILGA, businesses, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and other agencies and LGBTI organizations. Her research focuses on the global cost of homophobia and transphobia, economic empowerment of LGBTI people, and LGBTI economic inequality (including wage gaps, employment discrimination, and poverty). Her latest book is The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All (Beacon Press, 2020).