Dr. Kashia Amber Arnold is the Assistant Director of the UCSB Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy, where she leads project and community engagement work across several of the Center's core initiatives. She serves as initiative lead for the Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative (CCREI), the Dr. U.S. Awasthi Initiative in Cooperative Economics, and the Campus Housing Coalition, and helps manage the Poverty, Inequality, and Social Justice (PISJ) Minor program. Across these initiatives, she works to connect scholarship with community action, advancing equity and justice on the Central Coast and in partnership with regional organizations and institutions.

Kashia holds a PhD in History from UC Santa Barbara, with research specializations in public policy, America and the world, globalization, and the global distribution of resources. Her research explores how globalization has distorted the way we value work, workers, and economic participation, with an eye toward understanding the narratives we have inherited and the more equitable economies we might build.