Search Fellows | Russell Sage Foundation

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.

Timothy Patrick Moran

State University of New York, Stony Brook

Visiting Scholar

2006 to 2007

Timothy Moran, Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY, Stony Brook, and Roberto Korzeniewicz, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, form a working group that will be at the Foundation in the fall to write a book examining inequality from a global perspective, focused on rising economic disparities among countries around the world. They will argue that trends in the last century have led to reduced inequality within wealthy nations, but accentuated inequality between rich and poor nations.

Joseph Tobin

Arizona State University

Visiting Scholar

2007 to 2008

Joseph Tobin, Nadine Mathis Basha Professor of Early Childhood Education at Arizona State University, will analyze and write up the results of “Children Crossing Borders,” an interdisciplinary study of preschools as one of the front lines in immigrants’ contact with the cultures of England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. The study looks at how preschool teachers and administrators have modified their practices to serve increasingly diverse populations.

Gerard Torrats-Espinosa

Columbia University

Visiting Scholar

2024 to 2025

Torrats-Espinosa will examine how workplace and residential environments influence racial disparities in policing. He will use large-scale administrative data from several police departments across the U.S. to generate evidence on the sources of police violence and its impact on racial and ethnic minorities.

Kristin Turney

University of California, Irvine

Visiting Scholar

2019 to 2020

Turney will use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and propensity-score matching models to study the consequences of incarceration for family life. She will explore the short-and long-term consequences of fathers’ incarceration on romantic relationships, family members’ economic wellbeing, parenting practices, and health outcomes. She will also study how the effects of paternal incarceration on family life vary by race and ethnicity, educational attainment, residential status, and other factors.

Karolyn Tyson

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Visiting Scholar

2005 to 2006

Karolyn Tyson, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will combine data from several studies to write a book that examines how school environment and cultural beliefs about education influence student performance, especially among black and low-performing children. Using interviews with students, parents and school staff, as well as ethnographies and test score data, Tyson will construct a theory outlining the developmental trajectory of these disadvantaged students.

Jennifer Van Hook

Pennsylvania State University

Visiting Scholar

2021 to 2022

Van Hook and James Bachmeier will co-author a book about whether the U.S. can successfully integrate diverse waves of newcomers. They will incorporate findings from a previous RSF-funded project in which they used census data to track immigrant integration based on educational attainment and other outcomes across three generations.

Mark J. VanLandingham

Tulane University

Visiting Scholar

2013 to 2014

VanLandingham will explore the sources and limits of resilience within the Vietnamese American community in New Orleans, with a focus on the community’s recovery during the post-Katrina era. He will investigate several factors, including a shared history of overcoming adversity, strong religious institutions, and effective leadership that may have led to a wide range of positive outcomes.

Jessica M. Vasquez

University of Kansas

Visiting Scholar

2011 to 2012

Vasquez will write a book investigating whether and to what extent Latino intermarriage with non-Hispanic whites facilitates the adoption of an “American” identity and integration into the mainstream for both parents and children. Vasquez will also explore the effects of Latino marriages to other racial minorities, and between Latino co-ethnics, on ethnic solidarity, cultural retention, and self-perception.

Andrea Voyer

University of Connecticut

Visiting Scholar

2017 to 2018

Voyer will complete a book on the “etiquette of inequality” in democratic spaces, or the everyday behaviors and practices that influence the participation and social inclusion of individuals within civic organizations. She will analyze how participants of different socioeconomic status, race, gender, and immigration status communicate with each other in supposedly egalitarian settings, including a public school, a church, and a community board.

Natasha Kumar Warikoo

Harvard University

Visiting Scholar

2013 to 2014

Warikoo will analyze how students at elite universities in the United States and Britain understand merit in admissions. Drawing from 144 in-depth interviews with undergraduates at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford, Warikoo will examine how race and campus experiences, especially institutional supports for inter-cultural contact, shape students’ understanding of diversity and merit.

Mary Waters

Harvard University

Margaret Olivia Sage Scholar

Mary Waters is PVK Professor of Arts and Sciences and the John L. Loeb Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.

Abigail Weitzman

University of Texas at Austin

Visiting Scholar

2019 to 2020

Weitzman will investigate how neighborhood violence—homicides in particular—shape pivotal outcomes in the lives of young women. She will link panel survey data and administrative data on local homicides to explore how women’s relationship dynamics, mental health, and college enrollment change with homicides occurring close to their home. She will also study how such exposure to neighborhood violence has consequences for economic and social stratification.

Bruce Western

Princeton University

Visiting Scholar

1999 to 2000

Bruce Western, associate professor of sociology at Princeton University, will study the impact of the penal system on U.S. labor market inequality among low-wage men since the 1980s. With the inmate population reaching 1.7 million in 1997, incarceration has had a profound impact on the life chances of the disadvantaged, particularly black men. Incarceration bequeaths joblessness, first by removing people from the labor market, second by greatly reducing the employability of ex-convicts reentering the labor market.

Nathan Wilmers

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Visiting Scholar

2024 to 2025

Wilmers will write a book exploring the extent to which the unexpected decline in inequality over the last decade might lead to lasting wage gains for low-wage workers. Drawing on administrative and survey data, he will examine the extent to which firm composition changes contributed to the decline in inequality and how employers reallocated tasks within low-wage jobs to support higher productivity and higher pay.

William Julius Wilson

Harvard University

Margaret Olivia Sage Scholar

William Julius Wilson is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University. He served on the board of the Russell Sage Foundation from 1988–1998, and as chair from 1993–1996. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Education and the Institute of Medicine. He has served as president of the American Sociological Association, and was a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellow.

Julia C. Wrigley

City University of New York

Visiting Scholar

2003 to 2004

Julia C. Wrigley, professor of sociology at the City University of New York Graduate Center, will write a book that analyzes episodes of harm to children in non-parental child care, and the responses of parents, caregivers, and investigative authorities to these breaches of trust. Trust has rarely been analyzed in a childcare context, yet non-parental care requires profound trust in others to operate. Unlike in Europe, few mechanisms are in place in the United States to help parents assess providers.

Kathryne Young

George Washington University

Visiting Scholar

2023 to 2024

Young will investigate common civil justice problems such as landlord-tenant disputes and consumer debt from the perspective of everyday people. Better understanding their “legal consciousness”—attitudes, beliefs, and understandings about law—will facilitate design of justice solutions that meet people where they are. Her mixed-methods research will draw on survey data from over 3600 U.S. adults as well as longitudinal interviews with over 100 people going through civil justice problems.