Search Fellows
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Robert J. Sampson
Harvard University
Visiting Scholar
2010 to 2011
Sampson will write a book and several articles that advance three interrelated projects examining how the structure of communities, especially leadership, influences community trust and functioning; how living in or near mixed-income communities is related to individual outcomes, such as economic well-being; and how participation in civic activities has changed over time.
Aliya Saperstein
Stanford University
Visiting Scholar
2014 to 2015
Saperstein will write a book on how changes in racial status are related to changes in social status. The book builds on her research on the fluidity of racial perceptions, including analyses of how people self-identify racially, how they are classified by others, and how conceptions of race shift both within and across generations. She finds that these micro-level changes carry significant implications for the persistence of racial inequality.
Natalia Sarkisian
Boston College
Visiting Scholar
2011 to 2012
Sarkisian will write a book examining how social class and race shape kin support in the United States. Sarkisian will focus on whether poverty boosts or weakens kin ties by examining three central questions: How do economic resources affect individuals’ ties to extended families? What mechanisms link economic disadvantage to kin support? Does giving and receiving kin support help or hinder economic mobility?
Judith A. Seltzer
University of California, Los Angeles
Visiting Scholar
2010 to 2011
Seltzer is part of an interdisciplinary working group (with Suzanne Bianchi and Joseph Hotz), which will assess three primary pathways through which families may transmit advantage or disadvantage to subsequent generations: genes and biology, economic resources and skills, and social ties and family obligations. Suzanne Bianchi and Judith Seltzer will complete their book, Family Relationships Across the Generations.
Carrie L. Shandra
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Visiting Scholar
2018 to 2019
Shandra will undertake a comprehensive study of internships, which are now a common employment experience for younger workers. Drawing from surveys, interviews, and a longitudinal dataset of online job and internship postings, she will provide a descriptive account of the internship market. She will examine employers’ perspectives and practices on internships, study which groups are more likely to take internships and what kinds of internships they select, and evaluate interns’ labor market outcomes.
Carla Shedd
Columbia University
Visiting Scholar
2010 to 2011
Shedd will write journal-length articles comparing how adolescents are socialized regarding the law and how they perceive injustice. She will compare the experiences of Latino youth to other racial and ethnic groups, anticipating that increased racial diversity in schools may result in a significant increase in perceptions of injustice.
Jennifer M. Silva
Indiana University
Visiting Scholar
2022 to 2023
Silva will work on a book about the persistence of health disparities using electronic health records, physicians’ notes, and interviews with 48 White women and 40 Black and Latina women without a college degree. She will examine how divergences between the medical records and patient narratives might be associated with inappropriate treatment plans, patient “noncompliance,” and missed appointments that contribute to health disparities and the underlying social factors that contribute to poor quality of life and barriers to achieving care and well-being.
Angela Simms
Barnard College
Visiting Scholar
2023 to 2024
Simms will investigate how ostensibly race-neutral government budget and policy processes create and sustain racial inequity within metropolitan areas. She focuses on the experience of a majority-Black and middle-class jurisdiction’s capacity to maintain high-quality public goods and services.
Robert Smith
Baruch College, City University of New York
Visiting Scholar
2007 to 2008
Robert Smith, Associate Professor of Sociology, Immigration Studies, and Public Affairs at Baruch College and Graduate Center, CUNY, will write a book on the education, employment, and social lives of young adult children of Mexican immigrants in New York City. Smith will use data from a ten-year ethnographic study to document the factors that contribute to both upward and downward mobility.
Sandra Susan Smith
New York University
Visiting Scholar
2002 to 2003
Sandra Smith, assistant professor of sociology at New York University, will study the efficacy of low-income African-Americans' job referral networks. It is often argued that as a result of structural and demographic changes there has been an overall decline in the sheer number of people to which the urban poor are connected. Recent evidence suggests that the extent of the poor's detachment from the mainstream has been overestimated.
Xi Song
University of Pennsylvania
Visiting Scholar
2023 to 2024
Song will investigate discrimination against Asian Americans in the labor market. She will analyze linked longitudinal data from Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics, the American Community Survey, the Census, and the National Survey of College Graduates and compare earning trajectories among Asian American subgroups and Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics.
Judith Stacey
New York University
Visiting Scholar
2005 to 2006
Judith Stacey, Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality at New York University, will finish writing an ethnographic book about gay male intimacy in Los Angeles. Based on ethnographic interviews and fieldwork with 50 gay men from diverse backgrounds, the book will discuss the social implications of trends in family values, planned gay parenthood, interracial intimacy, fidelity, and “open relationships” among gay men. The book will also look at gay-friendly family policies enacted in other nations and will discuss how U.S.
David Stark
Columbia University
Visiting Scholar
2002 to 2003
David Stark, the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Columbia University, will write a book on the co-evolution of organizational forms and interactive technologies in new media firms, electronic trading rooms, and digital crossroads in Eastern Europe. At mid-century, organizational analysts charted the rise of bureaucratic organizations and the emergence of mass communication.
Linda Brewster Stearns
University of California, Riverside
Visiting Scholar
2000 to 2001
Linda Brewster Stearns, professor of sociology at the University of California, Riverside, will write a book explaining the four great merger waves that arose between 1890 and 1990. Rather than assessing the success of mergers for the individual firms involved, Stearns will study the merger wave as a whole. Firms rarely benefit from acquiring other firms, but the individual managers, investment bankers, and lawyers who handle the merger often reap substantial rewards.
Gillian Stevens
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Visiting Scholar
2007 to 2008
Gillian Stevens, Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will complete a book on how non-English-speaking groups are adapting to life in English-language dominated U.S. society. Stevens will analyze census and survey data to show how proficiency in English, or lack thereof, affects everything from socioeconomic achievement, to race relations, to inter-family relationships among recent immigrants. Stevens will also examine how American society is responding to the dramatic growth in the number of non-English language speakers.
Ann Swidler
University of California, Berkeley
Visiting Scholar
2009 to 2010
Ann Swidler, professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, will write a book on the role of local brokers and mediators in shaping humanitarian efforts, and the frequently vast distance between donor intent and action on the ground. The book will be based on data and field research from AIDS organizations in sub-Saharan Africa and will examine the organizational and individual interests of national elites, local NGO staff, and aspiring village elites in translating donor ideas into projects.
Rosemary Taylor
Tufts University
Visiting Researcher
2018 to 2019
Rosemary Taylor is Associate Professor of Sociology and Community Health at Tufts University. Drawing upon extensive archival material and interviews, she will develop a new analytical perspective on how governments cope with risk, focusing on the process whereby scientific judgments are generated and integrated into policy-making.
Edward E. Telles
University of California, Los Angeles
Visiting Scholar
2004 to 2005
Edward Telles, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, will work on a book that examines intergenerational change in ethnic identity and socio-economic mobility among Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and San Antonio between 1965 and 2000. Using a longitudinal data set covering four generations of Mexican Americans, Telles will examine how applicable previous theories about immigrant assimilation are to Mexican Americans, whose skin color and educational attainment are vastly different than the Europeans after whom the theories were designed.
James Thomas
University of Mississippi
Visiting Scholar
2022 to 2023
Thomas will examine beliefs about Whiteness among White Southerners who came of age amidst the large-scale social, economic, political, and cultural shifts of the 21st century. He will focus on how those who continue to benefit from their place within the racial hierarchy understand and make sense of that hierarchy and their place within it.
Marta Tienda
Princeton University
Margaret Olivia Sage Scholar
Marta Tienda is Maurice P. During ’22 Professor of Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She was a board member of Russell Sage Foundation from 1992–2001, and currently serves as a trustee of the Teachers Insurance Annuity Association, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Jacobs Foundation of Switzerland, and the White House Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.