Grace A Carey is a Program Officer at the Michigan Municipal League Foundation (MML Foundation) and runs a portfolio of technical assistance and Learning & Impact programming for Michigan communities. She is trained as a Cultural Anthropologist with areas of expertise in Political-Legal Anthropology, Placemaking, and Community Studies with a PhD from Princeton University and a BA from University of Michigan-Flint. Between 2015-2021, Grace researched a privately owned and privately governed town in Florida with social and financial ties to Michigan, culminating in her published dissertation The Art of Building Paradise: How a Catholic Community Experiences the Utopic in Everyday Life. Her research and experience as an anthropologist has given her the opportunity to study and engage with the incredible human capacity for making community and place across the US and Scandinavia; experience that she hopes will continue to grow here at home in Michigan. Grace is deeply passionate about issues of democracy and equitable placemaking and she is excited to be a part of the community wealth building mission at the Michigan Municipal League Foundation.