Gerardo Espinal Franco

Gerardo "Gerry" Espinal Franco is the Assistant Director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility. In this role, Gerardo handles myriad responsibilities including project management, marketing, and communications. He comprehensively oversees the Center's operations, fostering initiatives such as conferences, summer schools, and working groups. He generates website content, manages recruitment, and organizes the production of "The Inequality Podcast." 

Prior to joining the center, Gerardo was a Captain in the Marine Corps, where he served as a Manpower Officer from 2018 to 2023. In his first duty station in Okinawa, Japan, his work centered on crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic and the reactivation and restructuring of logistical units. After three years abroad, he was assigned to Marine Corps Installations Command East in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. There, he served as Deputy Chief Administrative Officer overseeing managerial processes for six installations. Before that, he worked as a high school teacher at YES Prep Southeast in Houston for two years, where he taught world geography, world history, and rhetoric. 

Gerardo completed his bachelor’s degree in public relations and philosophy from the University of Houston in 2014. He is also a University of Chicago alumnus earning an MA in Humanities with a concentration in philosophy in 2015.