[4] Margaret C. Simms was born 1946 in St. Louis and spent the majority of her early life there, growing up with two significantly older brothers.
[5] Nevertheless, she attended Carleton College in Minnesota, a liberal institution with students who strongly supported the civil rights movement throughout her time there.
Upon matriculation, Simms intended to major in chemistry or physics, influenced by her personal success in those subjects in high school and family partiality toward the sciences, but found these subjects difficult to relate to life and career after college and decided to explore other options.
Simms had no mentors within the department; while she did not encounter blatant obstacles, there was some consensus among her graduating cohort that the environment was not supportive.
This event and its consequential riots ultimately lead her to shift her focus to domestic issues and policies, despite her involvement with the State Department through the Foreign Affairs Scholar Program.
[6] She then moved on to work at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (JCPES) from 1986 to 2007, the top think tank of African American policy, where she was hired to be the deputy director of research.
[8] Though she has experience in a variety of roles ranging from teaching to researching, she feels that the majority of her career has been most impactful in building (particularly Black) institutions.
She also served as editor of the Review of Black Political Economy, the National Economic Association's scholarly journal, for five years, in which she improved its financial stability and established a calendar, including reoccurring special issues.
As vice president for research at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, she implemented a strategic planning process.
[14] Throughout her career, Simms has also served as a consultant to many government and nonprofit organizations, advising them on effective policies to close equity gaps disadvantaging minorities.
In 1978, she consulted for The National Urban League, an organization empowering Black Americans economically to achieve racial equity.