Stacey is a research associate at the Institute for Urban Research, an award-winning journalist, and a nationally recognized child advocate whose research focuses on the intersections of race and childhood. She is the author of That Mean Old Yesterday - A Memoir (Simon and Schuster), Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America (Beacon Press), and the forthcoming book Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Children and Teenagers in America, 1880-1968 (Beacon Press). Her reporting on issues of child welfare, race relations, and higher education has appeared in multiple outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC News, Al Jazeera and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She has made frequent media appearances and has won numerous journalism awards and citations.

As a child advocate, Dr. Patton delivers national keynotes and professional trainings focused on combating racial disparities in child abuse, foster care, and corporal punishment in public schools, diversion and restorative justice programs. She works as an intermediary between social service and law enforcement agencies seeking to improve services to communities of color. For her efforts, in 2016 the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children bestowed her with the Outstanding Service and Advancement of Cultural Competency in Child Maltreatment Prevention and Intervention Award. At the IUR she will focus on issues surrounding disparities in K-14 and higher education, juvenile justice, child welfare, housing, gentrification, food access, health and economic justice.