The Stone Center looks forward to welcoming two new postdoctoral scholars in September 2020. The two scholars, each appointed for two years, were selected from a pool of more than 150 applicants.
Bennett Callaghan is a social psychologist who researches the influence of inequality on politics and public opinion. His research primarily focuses on the processes underlying public perceptions of economic inequality and support for policies that reduce inequality. He also researches how social class and socio-economic status influence political preferences and participation. Callaghan will receive his Ph.D. in social psychology from Yale University in May 2020. His dissertation investigates how exposure to information about racial inequalities in the United States motivates white Americans to oppose equality-enhancing policy. It also explores how best to communicate such information effectively.
Jaquelyn Jahn is a social epidemiologist whose research investigates the consequences of social policies for population health and health equity. Her current projects examine the intergenerational implications of criminal legal contact for health and well-being across the life course, as well as the effects of reforms in U.S. healthcare and criminal justice policy. Her work has examined how mass incarceration and police violence affect the health of individuals and their communities. Her research in cancer epidemiology has explored structural racism and discrimination as drivers of inequalities in cancer incidence and prevention. She earned an MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2016, and will receive her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Program in Population Health Sciences in May 2020.“All of us in the Stone Center look forward to welcoming Bennett and Jackie in the fall of 2020,” said Professor Janet C. Gornick (Political Science, Sociology), director of the Stone Center. “They are both accomplished inequality scholars and their disciplinary backgrounds — in social psychology and epidemiology — will broaden the Stone Center’s research and methodological capacities. We are grateful to Jim and Cathy Stone for supporting this postdoctoral scholars program, and we look forward to welcoming more talented young scholars in the coming years.” Callaghan and Jahn will join the Stone Center’s two current postdoctoral scholars, who started their appointments in the fall of 2019: Bilyana Petrova, a political scientist specializing in political economy, and Marco Ranaldi, whose current research focuses on high-end wealth.
The postdoctoral program was launched with a gift in 2018 of $1.2 million from The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. In addition to their salaries, the scholars will receive funding for research expenses and for hiring Graduate Center students as research assistants.
The Stone Center’s mission is to build and disseminate knowledge related to the causes, nature, and consequences of multiple forms of socio-economic inequality. The postdoctoral scholars will join a team with deep experience using the data, and will work closely with the center’s six core faculty members: Professors Gornick, Leslie McCall, Paul Krugman, Branko Milanovic, Salvatore Morelli, and Miles Corak.