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 Journalists, Visiting Researchers, Margaret 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).

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Meet Our Current Visiting Scholars

Explore Our 2025-26 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.

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Seth K. Goldman

Goldman will examine how people of color respond to and understand popular media narratives about demographic changes, particularly the “majority-minority” shift, in which people of color are predicted to become the numerical majority. His project will consist of media content analysis and a nationally representative panel…

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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…

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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…

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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…

More about Ruth Milkman

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.

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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…

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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…

More about Elizabeth Penn

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…

More about Wendy Roth

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…

More about Heather Schoenfeld

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…

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Van Tran

Tran will examine the life experiences of vulnerable Asian Americans, including disadvantaged refugee groups and low-income older Asians. His work broadens established narratives of Asian American success by focusing on a less visible segment of the Asian population. He will explore the consequences of growing intra-Asian…

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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…

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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.

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.

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