Spencer L. James is a professor in the School of Family Life and the coordinator of the Africana Studies Program at Brigham Young University. He is also a Fellow of the Wheatley Institute and the Ballard Center for Social Impact, and a faculty affiliate in Global Women’s Studies, Canadian Studies, and International Development. His research examines how family relationships shape the well-being of women, children, and men across diverse cultural, religious, and economic contexts, with particular attention to global families, gender, and development. He is the founder and director of the Global Families Research Initiative and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Parakou in Benin, West Africa, during the 2023–2024 academic year. He is also the principal architect of the Family Wellbeing Index (FWI), a multidimensional framework designed to measure family wellbeing and inform family-centered policy across countries and regions. His work seeks to bridge academic research and public policy by developing evidence-based tools that help governments, international organizations, and civil society better understand and strengthen family wellbeing. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and a book with Oxford University Press.