C. Nicole Mason (born 1976, Los Angeles, California) is an American author, columnist and researcher. She is the founding director of Future Forward Women, a legislative exchange and policy network at the New York Women's Foundation; and formerly a lecturer in the women's studies department at Georgetown University.
Her research work focuses on the impact of the intersections of race, class, and gender. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, she coined the term âÂÂShecessionâ to describe the unbalanced impact of the employment and income losses on women.
In 2016, she authored Born Bright: A Young Girl's Journey from Nothing to Something in America, a book chronicling her childhood in California to her acceptance at Howard University. Mason was named as one of the 'World's 50 Greatest Leaders' by Fortune.
Mason was born in Los Angeles, California. She was raised by a single mother and experienced episodic homelessness. She attended Head Start as a child and benefited from many social safety net programs.
She is the first in her family to graduate high school and college.
Mason earned her Ph.D. and master's in government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her specializations are women, public policy and political philosophy. She is the first Black woman to specialize in political philosophy in the program's history. Political scientist Linda Faye Williams served as her dissertation chair. She also earned a women's studies Certificate from the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies under sociologist Bonnie Thornton Dill and transnational feminist Seung-kyung Kim.
As of 2025, Mason lives in New York and Maryland. She has two children.