About Avery

Avery M. D. Davis is Chief of Staff to the Senior Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations at New York University. As a higher education administrator, Avery has experience addressing complex organizational issues, implementing strategic plans, and developing creative solutions across teams. In addition to his administrative work, Avery conducts scholarly research that employs quantitative methods and large-scale data to analyze how ethnic and economic minorities navigate higher education. His research investigates the ways in which high schools, higher education organizations, and social systems affect adolescents' and adults’ long-term aspirations and trajectories.

In addition to the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, his research has been supported by the RAND Corporation (with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). Furthermore, at Hopkins, he was named the School of Education’s 2023 Jeffrey A. Grigg Memorial Award recipient and was a finalist for the university-wide 2023 Empower Your Pitch research communication competition.

He has also presented projects at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association and the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Beyond his scholarly work, Avery has written several op-eds that have been featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Times Higher Education, Higher Ed Dive, The Hechinger Report, and EdSurge.

Avery previously served as the Director of the President’s Office & Board Management at Concordia College New York; he has also worked in staff roles at Valparaiso University and Purdue University. Avery holds a Ph.D. in Education from Johns Hopkins University, an M.A. in Liberal Studies from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and a B.A. in Music and Chinese/Japanese Studies from Valparaiso University (Phi Beta Kappa). Avery is also an alumnus of the Disney Dreamers Academy, where he has since served as a spokesperson and mentor for high school students from across the United States.

Avery is a proud product of public, private, and charter school systems.