Skip to main content

Visiting Scholars Program

The Russell Sage Foundation’s Visiting Scholars Program provides a unique opportunity for select scholars in the social, economic, political and behavioral sciences to pursue their data analysis and writing while in residence at the foundation’s headquarters in New York City.

RSF's Visiting Scholar fellowship is one of the preeminent fellowships of its kind within the social sciences. During their time at the Foundation, scholars will interact with other scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as Visiting JournalistsVisiting ResearchersMargaret Olivia Sage Scholars, and RSF staff in programs, communications, and publishing.

Current and previous scholars represent the diversity of the social sciences including anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology, as well as many other related fields (e.g., behavioral sciences, criminal justice, demography, education, history, law, public and social policy, public health, social epidemiology, social work, statistics, and urban planning, among others).

Meet Our Current Visiting Scholars

Explore Our 2024 Visiting Scholars and their Research
Our Visiting Scholars come from a diverse set of backgrounds and disciplines. Learn more about their work, meet our incoming class, or search all of our Fellows.
Picture of Mary Campbell
Mary Campbell
Campbell and Wendy Roth will examine how racial and ethnic identification change among multiracial individuals over time. They will investigate how patterns vary across racial and ethnic groups and will investigate the importance of demographic, socioeconomic, and geographic characteristics for predicting patterns of…
Picture of Michael Campbell
Michael Campbell
Campbell and Heather Schoenfeld will examine factors that influenced states to reduce their prison populations in the first decade of the 21st century by investigating differences in prison reform activity across states. They will analyze the obstacles confronting reformers and the strategies they employed to overcome…
Picture of Orly Clergé
Orly Clergé
Clergé will work on a book project that explores the political consciousness of Black youth. Using historiography and ethnography, the book reveals the everyday conditions of racial and class inequality that shape Obama era Black youth’s political identity, solidarities, and visions for a just future during their…
Picture of Christina Cross
Christina Cross
Cross will examine the varying impact of single parenthood on academic, mental health, and behavioral outcomes among African American, White, Latino, and Asian children. She will also investigate what factors may cause variation in the effects of single parenthood, such as nonresident father involvement, pathways to single…
Picture of Arianne Eason
Arianne Eason
Eason will interrogate the psychological causes for why children and adults maintain and perpetuate racial segregation, using survey and experimental methods. She hypothesizes that there is a mutually reinforcing cycle of segregation whereby structural segregation instills the perception that people prefer same-race peers…
Picture of Heidi Gottfried
Heidi Gottfried
Gottfried and Ruth Milkman will examine the complexities of the fast-growing U.S. home care labor market. They will compare formal employment in the Medicaid-funded market segment, formal employment in the privately paid segment, and the 'gray market,' in which clients hire home care workers through informal networks and…
Picture of Ajay Mehrotra
Ajay Mehrotra
Mehrotra will examine why the U.S. has historically resisted a broad-based national consumption tax, such as a value-added tax (VAT), and what that resistance reveals about inequality. His historical analysis of tax policy will investigate the role of fiscal experts in advancing or inhibiting a consumption tax, how…
Picture of Ruth Milkman
Ruth Milkman
Milkman and Heidi Gottfried will examine the complexities of the fast-growing U.S. home care labor market. They will compare formal employment in the Medicaid-funded market segment, formal employment in the privately paid segment, and the 'gray market,' in which clients hire home care workers through informal networks and…
Picture of Francesc Ortega
Francesc Ortega
Ortega will examine how recent reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program have impacted disadvantaged communities in flood-prone areas. He will also analyze administrative data on flood insurance policies and the American Community Survey to evaluate additional reforms, such as extending insurance mandates.
Picture of John Patty
John Patty
Patty and Elizabeth Penn will examine how algorithms that classify people, such as the FICO credit score and Equivant’s COMPAS recidivism risk scoring algorithm, shape individual behavior and social outcomes. Their research will address questions such as how society should regulate algorithms and how issues of individual…
Picture of Elizabeth Penn
Elizabeth Penn
Penn and John Patty will examine how algorithms that classify people, such as the FICO credit score and Equivant’s COMPAS recidivism risk scoring algorithm, shape individual behavior and social outcomes. Their research will address questions such as how society should regulate algorithms and how issues of individual…
Picture of Wendy Roth
Wendy Roth
Roth and Mary Campbell will examine how racial and ethnic identification change among multiracial individuals over time. They will investigate how patterns vary across racial and ethnic groups and will investigate the importance of demographic, socioeconomic, and geographic characteristics for predicting patterns of change…
Picture of Heather Schoenfeld
Heather Schoenfeld
Schoenfeld and Michael Campbell will examine factors that influenced states to reduce their prison populations in the first decade of the 21st century by investigating differences in prison reform activity across states. They will analyze the obstacles confronting reformers and the strategies they employed to overcome…
Picture of Karen Ivette Tejada-Peña
Karen Ivette Tejada-Peña
Tejada-Peña will complete a book examining the impacts of “crimmigration” – the merging of the criminal justice and immigration systems – on Salvadorans in Long Island, New York. She argues that gang-related enforcement efforts are one way to facilitate this "racial project" and fuel the deportation machinery. Based on a…
Picture of Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Wrigley-Field will analyze how demography enables and constrains cultural and political change through population ties to historical events and experiences. For example, she will investigate the high death rates of older Black Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the number of Black Americans who have a living…
About the Program

The Visiting Scholar Fellowship is one of the preeminent fellowships of its kind within the social sciences. During their time at the Foundation, scholars will interact with other scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as Visiting Journalists, Visiting Researchers, Margaret Olivia Sage Scholars, and RSF staff in programs, communications, and publishing. This residential fellowship requires significant foundation resources, and scholars are expected to engage fully in the intellectual life of RSF.

Applications Due: June 1, 2024. Apply Now

Apply to be a Visiting Scholar

The Russell Sage Foundation’s Visiting Scholars Program provides a unique opportunity for select scholars in the social, economic and behavioral sciences to pursue their research and writing while in residence at the Foundation’s New York headquarters.

Meet All of Our Fellows
Visiting Journalists
Visiting Researchers
Margaret Olivia Sage Scholars
Russell Sage Foundation Nobelists
Research Highlights
Search All Russell Sage Foundation Fellows