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Why elite colleges should use a lottery to admit students

January 8, 2019

The Conversation | By Natasha Warikoo PhD 2005, Associate Professor of Education, Harvard University. Reprinted in Times Higher Education, Quartz, San Francisco Chronicle, and others. Selected for Five Best Ideas of the Day by The Aspen Institute.



In Texas, this Latina's research is helping close the education gap

September 17, 2019

NBC News | Interview with Ruth López Turley PhD 2001, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Houston Education Research Consortium at Rice University.

"Almost 10 years ago, when I was promoted with tenure, I reflected on all the research I had produced up to that point... Even though I had been at some of the nation’s top research universities, none of my work changed anything for anyone, which was the whole reason I got into this line of work in the first place. I began to connect with colleagues who were working in partnerships between universities and local school districts in other cities. That’s when I came to Rice University for a fresh start and to develop this partnership research model in Houston."

Learn more about Ruth López Turley | Pursuing Educational Equity ►



Beth Truesdale: ASA Best Graduate Student Paper Award in Aging and the Life Course

August 15, 2018

Awardee | Beth Truesdale PhD 2017 is the recipient of the Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Aging and the Life Course, for “Coming of Age in an Unequal State: The Life Course Effects of Economic Inequality on Health." Truesdale received her PhD in Sociology from Harvard in 2017 and is now a Sloan Postdoctoral Research Fellow on Aging and Work, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.



Christopher Muller: ASA Charles Tilly Best Article Award in Comparative Historical Sociology

August 15, 2019

Awardee | Christopher Muller PhD 2014 has received the 2019 Charles Tilly Best Article Award from the ASA Comparative-Historical Section for "Freedom and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South," American Journal of Sociology 124: 367-405. Muller received his PhD in Sociology from Harvard in 2014 and is now Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of California, Berkeley.

View the research ►



A conservative scholar questions whether the US really has an inequality problem

July 27, 2018

Quartz | Interview with Scott Winship PhD 2009, now Executive Director of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee.



The Inflation Gap

November 5, 2019

Atlantic | A new analysis by Christopher Wimer PhD 2007, Sophie Collyer, and Xavier Jaravel suggests not only  that rising prices have been quietly taxing low-income families more heavily than rich ones, but also that, after accounting for that trend, the American poverty rate is significantly higher than the official measures suggest.

Wimer received his PhD in Sociology & Social Policy from Harvard in 2007 and is now Co-Director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy (CPSP) at Columbia University. Xavier Jaravel received his PhD in Business Economics from Harvard in 2016 and is now Assistant Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. Jaravel's research on inflation inequality—showing that prices have risen more quickly for people at the bottom of the income distribution than for those at the top—which informs their analysis of the poverty rate, appears in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (May 2019).

View the brief: The Costs of Being Poor ►
View the research: Quarterly Journal of Economics  ►






What States Can Do to Drastically Reduce Child Poverty

May 6, 2019

Governing | By Meg Wiehe and Christopher Wimer PhD 2007. Building on the federal Child Tax Credit would yield dramatic results, Wiehe and Wimer argue. Christopher Wimer received his PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard and is now Co-Director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.



Alexandra Killewald and Brielle Bryan: ASA Award for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship in Population

August 15, 2019

Awardees | Alexandra Killewald and Brielle Bryan PhD 2018 received the American Sociological Association's Population Section Award for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship for "Falling Behind: The Role of Inter- and Intragenerational Processes in Widening Racial and Ethnic Wealth Gaps through Early and Middle Adulthood," published in Social Forces in 2018. Alexandra Killewald is Professor of Sociology. Brielle Bryan earned her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy in 2018 and is now Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rice University.

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Being a Black Academic in America

April 18, 2019

Chronicle of Higher Education | In the wake of the Operation Varsity Blue bribery scandal, The Chronicle Review asked graduate students, junior professors, and senior scholars what it’s like to be an African-American academic today. Includes responses by Michael Javen Fortner PhD 2010, Matthew Clair PhD 2018, and Nadirah Farah Foley, a fourth-year Ph.D. student at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.



How Harvard admissions can be a barometer of our deepest divides

September 27, 2019

CNN Opinion | By Jennifer Lee and Van C. Tran (PhD 2011). Van C. Tran is associate professor of sociology at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Jennifer Lee is professor of sociology at Columbia University.

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