March 10, 2026
An eighth cohort of postdoctoral scholars will join the Stone Center for two-year appointments that begin in August 2026. Jasmine Simington was selected for the position that focuses on wealth inequality and is affiliated with the GC Wealth Project. Christopher Pulliam was selected for the position that broadly focuses on mobility and poverty.
Jasmine Simington is a mixed-method sociologist who examines wealth accumulation among non-elites, policies that reduce racial wealth disparities, and the relationship between environmental disasters and housing wealth. Her current work explores the process of intestate inheritance — colloquially known as heirs’ property ownership — to better understand how property laws shape inequalities in wealth building. Her research has been published in Social Forces, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and other outlets. Prior to pursuing a Ph.D. in public policy and sociology from the University of Michigan, Simington worked in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at The Urban Institute.
Chris Pulliam is a public policy researcher who studies intergenerational mobility, poverty, and the social safety net in the United States. His current work focuses on how income-support programs affect the economic well-being and health of U.S. children and families. He uses novel data and causal inference methods to investigate outcomes within and across generations, contributing to our understanding of inequality and quantifying the benefits of public investments in low-income children. Pulliam is expected to receive a Ph.D., with concentrations in social policy and economics, from the Columbia University School of Social Work. Before pursuing his Ph.D., he worked as a research analyst at the Brookings Institution.
“We’re thrilled that Jasmine Simington and Chris Pulliam will join our team this fall,” said Janet Gornick, director of the Stone Center. “For each cohort, we select two postdocs who will deepen our current portfolio of research and expand the breadth of our work. Jasmine’s important research on wealth inequality, racial wealth gaps, and the connection between environmental catastrophes and housing wealth will add to the work carried out by the GC Wealth Project team. Chris’s innovative work and methods will extend our work on intergenerational mobility, the U.S. social safety net, and the impact of public policies on children and families. Jasmine and Chris, selected from a tremendous pool of hundreds of applicants, will bring our total number of Stone Center postdocs to sixteen.”
Simington and Pulliam will join the center’s seventh cohort of postdoctoral scholars, who started their two-year terms in September 2025: Naomi Crowther, an economist who researches issues of gendered wealth inequality and the intergenerational and multidimensional effects of forced displacement; and Marai Hayes, an economist whose research examines how health shapes the trajectory of economic outcomes over the life course, and the potential for health and social policies to address inequities in health and economic opportunity.
The Stone Center recently announced a $10 million gift from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. This five-year gift will support the center’s postdoctoral scholars, many Graduate Center Ph.D. student researchers, and the Stone Center staff.
The Stone Center was founded at the Graduate Center in the fall of 2016 with an initial $2.5 million gift from the Stone Foundation. The foundation has continued to support the center’s work, allowing it to add two new postdocs a year since September 2019, along with funding other initiatives.
For a full list of the Stone Center’s current and former postdoctoral scholars, and more information about the postdoctoral program, see our Postdoctoral Scholars page.
