Professor Jessica Dixon Weaver is the Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Gerald J. Ford Research Fellow, and Professor of Law in the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She is an expert in child welfare law and public policy, and much of her scholarship focuses on theorizing methods for improvement of the legal systems and policies affecting families and children. Her current research and scholarship focus on the exploration of a theoretical basis to support a unified legal approach to intergenerational caregiving for children and senior citizens. She also researches and writes about the intersection of race, gender, and family law. One of her works in progress focuses on the influence of slavery laws on the legal structure and identity of American families during the ante-bellum era, as well as how these laws impacted the development of divorce, child custody and child support laws. She received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as notes development editor of the Virginia Law Review. In 2015, Professor Weaver became the first African-American woman to achieve tenure in SMU’s Dedman School of Law. A long-time friend and champion of Capita’s work, David W. Willis, MD, FAAP serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy and a national expert in pediatrics, early childhood systems, early relational health and early childhood mental health. At CSSP he helps to advance the growing intersection of child health transformation and early childhood system building with a social justice emphasis and an early relational health frame. Prior to coming to CSSP, Dr. Willis served as the Inaugural Executive Director of the Perigee Fund in Seattle, the Division Director of Home Visiting and Early Childhood Systems in HRSA under the Obama administration, an early brain and child development pediatric leader in Oregon and AAP, and a 30+ year developmental-behavioral pediatric clinician in Portland, Oregon. He received his MD from Thomas Jefferson University.
Aligned with Capita’s approach, Professor Weaver and Dr. Willis are dedicated to transcending disciplines, sectors, and ways of knowing to address some of the world’s most challenging and complex problems facing children, families, and communities and shaping a future in which children can develop to realize their full potential in a just, peaceful, prosperous society on a sustainable planet. We look forward to benefiting from their wisdom and experience as they join us as members of the governing board.