Jody L. Herman is a Williams Institute Scholar of Public Policy at UCLA School of Law. Her research has included studies of the fiscal impacts of discrimination against transgender people, employer-provided health benefits coverage for gender transition, the development of questions to identify gender minorities on population-based surveys, and minority stress, health, and suicidality among transgender people. Her research focuses on measurement of gender identity in survey research and the prevalence and impact of discrimination based on gender identity or expression, including issues related to gender regulation in public space and the built environment. Herman was previously a research consultant on issues of voting rights in low-income minority communities and gender identity discrimination.

Herman holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from The George Washington University, where she also earned her M.A. in Public Policy. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the development of anti-discrimination protections in public facilities for transgender and gender non-conforming people. She has worked on issues of poverty, women’s rights, and anti-discrimination policy development with non-profit research, advocacy, and direct-service organizations in the United States and Mexico.

Herman served as a co-author on the groundbreaking report Injustice at Every Turn, based on the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality. She also served as Co-Principal Investigator for the follow-up to the NTDS and co-author of The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, which describes findings from the largest survey of transgender adults ever conducted in the United States. Her research is routinely cited by major news sources, such as The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, and PBS.