James White

Program Manager

James White is a program manager for leadership and communications at Ascend at the Aspen Institute. The Aspen Institute’s mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan forum for dealing with key issues. Ascend is a policy program of the Institute and the national hub for breakthrough ideas and collaborations that move families toward educational success, economic security, and health and well-being.

At Ascend, James supports the national Ascend Fellowship and Colorado Children and Families Health and Human Services Fellowship and Ascend’s strategic communications efforts. Prior to joining Ascend, he supported a portfolio of programming dedicated to elevating youth voice within the Aspen Institute and beyond and led the team’s strategic communications efforts.

Prior to joining the Institute, James worked as a public relations intern at Time Inc., where he supported brand communications efforts across a portfolio of brands including TIME, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated. A native New Orleanian, James holds a B.S. in Communication with concentrations in Persuasion and Social Influence and Media Studies from Cornell University.

Stories featuring James White

An Evidence-Based Approach to Child Support

Through careful and rigorous research, we know that there is a better way to approach child support policy to build strong families and communities.

BlogApril 13, 2022

Making Black History and Forging Black Futures

Image caption: Ascend Fellows at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 2018. Pictured left to right: Ann Kalass, Darius Tandon, Kirsten Lodal, Lori Severens, John Hudson III, Myla Calhoun, William Serrata, Dipesh Navsaria, Anne Mosle, Myra Jones-Taylor, Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Laurie Miller Brotman, John Annis, Roxane White, Raquel Hatter, Sherece Y. West-Scantlebury, …

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Ascend FellowshipFebruary 23, 2022

A Family Story, One Decade in the Making

Think of how much our families evolve in 10 years. A seven-year-old will move from second-grade spelling tests to walking down the hallways of their dream university. At the same time, their parents may transition from school pick-up lines to their own school successes and career advancement. We don’t traverse our lives alone. We build …

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Ascend NetworkFebruary 21, 2022

Rebuild Right: Leadership for an Equitable Tomorrow

The inaugural Aspen Leadership Impact Forum brought Aspen Institute Ascend Fellows and philanthropic leaders who share a commitment to courageous leadership for children and families together with the inaugural cohort of SOARFellows, leaders working to expand opportunities for women and girls.

BlogNovember 15, 2021

Bringing Fathers Into Focus for Child & Family Well-Being

As we reimagine public systems and services to work better for families, we have an opportunity to do so in a way that honors the full diversity of family structures, as families themselves define them, and builds upon families’ inherent resilience. This requires an intentional and explicit commitment to applying a gender lens inclusive of …

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BlogJune 16, 2021

Investing in Futures Means Investing in Families: Announcing the Two-Generation Prenatal to Three Learning and Action Community

The COVID-19 pandemic has made more evident than ever the need to transform policies, practice, and systems to build upon the inherent resilience of families – especially those with low incomes and from BIPOC communities. In 2018 – 677,529 children experienced maltreatment in the US. 51 percent of those children were Black, Indigenous, or children …

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BlogDecember 9, 2020

Here’s to Warriors and Weavers for Care

Ascend is honored that our Executive Director Anne Mosle has been named to the Holding Co.’s CARE 100 List, a first-of-its-kind list of the people doing the most to re-imagine and re-humanize our care system. We are even more overjoyed to see so many of our Ascend Fellows, Network partners, Parent Advisors, philanthropic partners, and …

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BlogOctober 23, 2020

Indigenous Peoples’ Day Is an Opportunity to Reexamine History and Reimagine Our Future

Several cities, states, and municipalities across the US now use the second Monday in October to honor and celebrate Native American history, cultures, and communities. As America grapples with structural racism and the coronavirus pandemic, Indigenous Peoples’ Day offers us an opportunity to reflect on how Native traditions and teachings can offer guidance on how …

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BlogOctober 12, 2020

Child Care is Critical to Getting the Economy Moving Again

This interview is part of the Aspen Institute’s In Focus: Equity in Education multimedia series. Parents across the nation face the impossible choice of going back to work or looking after their children as states phase into reopening without addressing child care. Like so many states, the COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a blow to South …

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BlogOctober 1, 2020

Undo A System of White Supremacy: The Call for a New Social Contract

Black Lives Matter. As a collective of leaders committed to advancing two-generation strategies to end multigenerational poverty, we believe that the only path to that outcome is through a reckoning with our past and present, and a fundamental shift in our institutions. This requires a new social contract to remedy the harms of White supremacy –a …

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BlogJune 29, 2020

Seeing Fathers’ Roles in Family Prosperity Clearly in 2020: Equitable Family Leave and Research for Improved Outcomes

In celebration of Father’s Day, the Lurie Children’s Family and Child Health Innovations Program (FCHIP) released the Fathering During a Pandemic report to help guide fathers during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. “Father’s Day reminds us to think about and support the father figures who are important in our lives, and that’s something we should do every day of the …

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BlogJune 26, 2020

Juneteenth Is a Day of Reflection for All Americans

This post, by Aspen Institute senior manager of digital content and communications Kristina Saccone, was originally published on the Aspen Institute‘s website. Juneteenth, or Emancipation Day, recognizes an important moment in US history—when nearly a quarter of a million men, women, and children were freed—ending slavery nearly two years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. …

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BlogJune 19, 2020

Statement and Call to Action: Condemn Police Violence and Structural Racism

Dear Ascend Community: Ascend is committed to the work of anti-racism. Seeing and experiencing week after week what Black people and families go through, and the threat of violence they are subjected to on a daily basis, is completely unacceptable and must end. We stand against this ongoing oppression and the white supremacy that breeds …

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BlogJune 3, 2020

WEBINAR: Stopping Behavioral Health and Substance Use Disorders Where They Start: Prevention and Treatment in Adolescence

As the hub for breakthrough ideas and collaborations that move children and their parents toward educational success and economic security, Ascend is intensifying its efforts in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic to highlight 2Gen solutions that Ascend Fellows and the Ascend Network have developed over the past decade to help families reach their potential. Ascend is examining how new solutions, …

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BlogMay 29, 2020

Letter Supporting 2Gen Economic Empowerment Act & Pathways to Health Careers Act from Ascend & National Policy Partners

Momentum is building for the 2Gen approach as policymakers and practitioners at the city, county, and state level embrace it and fuel a groundswell of innovation and collaboration to advance family well-being. Bipartisan federal and congressional support contribute to this momentum. That’s why Ascend was proud to join our colleagues at the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), …

Letter Supporting 2Gen Economic Empowerment Act & Pathways to Health Careers Act from Ascend & National Policy Partners Read More »

BlogMay 29, 2020

Convenings Featuring James White

2Gen and Fatherhood

Date: June 8, 2021

Location: Virtual (Zoom)

Jessica Seinfeld opens a discussion between two expert and experienced men on what fatherhood looks like in a 2Gen approach, ways to include and center fathers in this work, and the social determinants acting as barriers to fatherhood amongst Black...

ConveningJune 8, 2021

James White

Stories featuring James White

Convenings Featuring James White

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