The Stone Center will welcome its third cohort of postdoctoral scholars in September 2021. The two incoming scholars, each appointed for a term of two years, were selected from a pool of several hundred applicants. Ignacio Flores was selected for the postdoctoral position that focuses specifically on high-end wealth inequality, and Rafia Zafar for the position dedicated to research focused more generally on inequality and mobility.
Flores is currently a postdoctoral researcher at INSEAD’s James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Centre for the Study of Wealth Inequality. He is also the coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Inequality Database. Flores earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. His research focuses on the historical evolution of wealth and income inequality, with particular interest in their relationships with the environment, the political sphere, and institutions.
Zafar is an economist whose research investigates intergenerational mobility in developing countries. Her research is also focused on exploring better methodology and econometric techniques to accurately estimate intergenerational mobility. Zafar’s recent work estimates intergenerational mobility in Indonesia using consumption expenditure as a measure of a household’s economic status. Her research on intergenerational mobility also concerns policy reform such as the impact of primary school construction on education mobility. She will receive her Ph.D. from Fordham University in Econometrics and Quantitative Economics in May 2021.
“We are immensely excited that Ignacio Flores and Rafia Zafar will join our team this fall,” said Janet Gornick, director of the Stone Center. “We intentionally select postdocs who will contribute to the Stone Center’s current portfolio of research and, at the same time, expand the range of our existing work. Both Ignacio and Rafia will bring expertise on socio-economic inequality in middle-income countries, enabling them to join ongoing projects and also to extend the center’s research in important new directions.”
The Graduate Center recently announced a $9.5 million gift from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. Among other efforts, the multi-year gift will allow the Stone Center to expand its postdoctoral scholars program by adding two new postdocs each year for the next five years. The fourth cohort will join the Stone Center in September 2022.
Flores and Zafar will share one year in residence with the Stone Center’s second cohort of postdoctoral scholars, who started their two-year terms in the fall of 2020: Bennett Callaghan, a social psychologist who researches the influence of class and racial inequality on politics and public opinion, and Jaquelyn Jahn, a social epidemiologist whose research investigates the consequences of social and criminal justice policies for population health and racial equity.