RSF trustee and author Jennifer Lee has been awarded a 2022 American Sociological Association Award for Public Sociology from the International Migration Section. The International Migration Section seeks to stimulate, promote, and reward the development of original theory and research on international migration. The selection committee cited the diversity of Lee’s contributions to the public sphere as well as the high-profile nature and impact of her work. In particular, they noted her work with AAPI Data, a nationally recognized publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. 

Of the award, Lee says: “While public engagement still doesn't come naturally nor easily to me, I learned how sharing social science research with a broader public can help disrupt tropes and reframe narratives about Asian Americans, including assumptions about their ‘success’ and attitudes toward affirmative action. And at this moment, the call for public engagement has taken on a new moral urgency given the surge in anti-Asian violence since the wake of COVID-19, which had made me even more committed to the endeavor. I hope that more social scientists may be inspired to share their research beyond academic journals with more diverse audiences to shift narratives and inform policy.”

Jennifer Lee is the Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Social Sciences at Columbia University. She joined the RSF board of trustees in 2021. She is co-author of RSF books The Asian American Achievement Paradox and The Diversity Paradox. She is co-editor of RSF: Russell Sage Journal of the Social Sciences issue “Asian Americans and the Immigrant Integration Agenda.” She contributed to RSF volumes Immigration, Poverty, and Socioeconomic Inequality, The Changing Face of World Cities, Immigration Research for a New Century, and The American People. She is an RSF research grant recipient and a former RSF visiting scholar.

Read the full list of 2022 ASA International Migration Section award winners here.