The Russell Sage Foundation recently approved 23 research grants in its programs on Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context; Future of Work; Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration; and Social, Political, and Economic Inequality and in its special initiatives Immigration and Immigrant Integration and Implications of the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities for Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility. Two summer institutes were funded. Four grants were co-funded with the Carnegie Corporation of New York, one grant was co-funded with the Hewlett and Spencer Foundations, one grant was co-funded with the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, and one grant was co-funded with the William T. Grant Foundation.

These research projects include studies on how women’s suffrage impacted policymakers’ legislative behavior; the effect of union pre-apprenticeships on reentry outcomes for the formerly incarcerated; how legal status and immigration laws shape the retirement plans of older, low-income Mexican immigrants; the impacts of immigration enforcement activity on economic and social outcomes; the impact of the shift from race-based to neighborhood-based affirmative action on racial and socioeconomic diversity in academically selective K–12 school admissions in Chicago; the extent to which perceptions of foreignness and discrimination vary across different Black communities; how social science experiments on Japanese American internees in internment camps during WWII impacted their experiences; and the impact of prison reform in South Carolina on crime and outcomes for the formerly incarcerated.

Following is a list of the recent grants. Please click on each for a brief description of each research project.

Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context

Michael Olson (Washington University in St. Louis), Mirya Holman (University of Houston), and Christina Wolbrecht (University of Notre Dame) will examine how women’s enfranchisement impacted state policymakers’ legislative behavior in the first half of the twentieth century.

Summer Institute & Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context

David Laibson (Harvard University) and Matthew Rabin (Harvard University) will lead the 2026 Behavioral Economics Summer Institute for advanced graduate students with an interest in developing an academic research career in behavioral economics.

Future of Work

Adam Blandin (Vanderbilt University), Alexander Bick (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), and David Deming (Harvard University) will examine how adoption of generative AI at work has changed and affected workers over time.  – This grant is co-funded with the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Adam Reich (Columbia University) and Erin Jacobs Valentine (Columbia University) will explore the impact of union pre-apprenticeships on reentry outcomes for the formerly incarcerated, such as employment, earnings, and recidivism.

Immigration and Immigrant Integration

Vanessa Delgado (Washington State University) will investigate how legal status and immigration laws shape the retirement plans of older, low-income Mexican immigrants.  – This grant is co-funded with the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Deisy Del Real (University of Southern California) will examine how the shift in viewing Venezuelan migrants from “deserving” to “undeserving” in policy and public discourse has impacted the legal, social, economic, and political incorporation of Venezuelan immigrants and asylum seekers.  – This grant is co-funded with the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Chloe East (University of Colorado, Boulder) will explore the impacts of immigration enforcement activity on economic and social outcomes using real-time data.  – This grant is co-funded with the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Rita Hamad (Harvard University) and Chloe East (University of Colorado, Boulder) will explore the long-term consequences of changes in SNAP eligibility criteria on the educational and occupational outcomes for eligible children of immigrants. – This grant is co-funded with the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Implications of the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities for Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility

Rene Crespin (Michigan State University) will investigate the impact of the shift from race-based to neighborhood-based affirmative action on racial and socioeconomic diversity in academically selective K–12 school admissions in Chicago. – This grant is co-funded with the William T. Grant Foundation.

Implications of the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities for Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility & Social, Political, and Economic Inequality

Veronica Sovero (University of California, Riverside), Amanda Griffith (Wake Forest University), and Sepideh Modrek (San Francisco State University) will examine how the California State University system’s policy of prioritizing local admissions has affected the college enrollment of underserved student populations. –This grant is co-funded with the Hewlett and Spencer Foundations.

Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration

Sapna Cheryan (University of Washington, Seattle) will investigate the extent to which perceptions of foreignness and discrimination vary across different Black communities.

Delia Furtado (University of Connecticut), Karen Shen (Johns Hopkins University), Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes (University of California, Merced), Krista Ruffini (Georgetown University), and Yulya Truskinovsky (Syracuse University) will investigate the impact of greater local availability of immigrant workers on nursing home staffing practices and job quality.

Monica Gamez-Djokic (Purdue University) and Adam Waytz (Northwestern University) will investigate the extent to which people perceive AI as racially White and whether these perceptions are related to beliefs about and willingness to adopt AI.

Sunmin Kim (Dartmouth College) will explore how social science experiments conducted Japanese internment camps during WWII impacted Japanese American internees’ experiences in the camps.

Mona Lynch (University of California, Irvine) will investigate how the Racial Justice Act in California, which allows criminal defendants to challenge racial and ethnic bias in the criminal justice system, operates in practice.

Margot Moinester (Washington University in St. Louis) and Ariela Schachter (Washington University in St. Louis) will examine how re-intensification of immigration enforcement under the second Trump administration shapes fear of deportation among first- and second-generation Latinx, Asian, and Black adults.

Ellis Monk (Harvard University) and René Rejon (University of Melbourne) will explore the relationship between the racial and ethnic identity of African American, Asian American, and Latinx politicians and their support for legislation benefiting their minority constituents.

Elizabeth Setren (Tufts University) and Kirsten Slungaard Mumma (Columbia University) will investigate the academic, social, and behavioral impacts of immigration on schools as well as school responses in Massachusetts.

Ismail White (Princeton University) will examine how racial, ethnic, and gender identity influence voting decisions and how an initial identity-driven political choice shapes subsequent voting decisions.

Social, Political, and Economic Inequality

Analisa Packham (Vanderbilt University) will investigate the impact of prison reform in South Carolina on crime and outcomes for the formerly incarcerated.

Patrisia Macías-Rojas (University of Illinois, Chicago) will exploring the lived experiences of Mexican immigrants, U.S.-born Latinos, and the Indigenous population in three U.S.-Mexico borderland communities over the past twenty years.

Fredrick Wherry (Princeton University) will examine how the clustering of debt collection and eviction lawsuits affect households and neighborhoods.

Summer Institute

Laura Feeney (J-PAL North America) will organize and oversee the 2026 ARTEMIS Summer Institute, which will provide training to early career scholars in designing and implementing randomized controlled trials.