2 018 –2 019 Fa c u l t y P r o f i l e s
Fa c u l t y A s s o c i a t e s
Alexandra K. Murphy is an assistant professor of sociology and a faculty associate of the Population Studies Center at the Institute for Social Research, with a courtesy appointment as a professor of public policy at the Ford School. In her research, she uses ethnographic methods to examine how poverty and inequality are experienced, structured, and reproduced across and within multiple domains of social life, including neighborhoods, social networks, and the state. Murphy is currently working on her book, When the Sidewalks End: Poverty in an American Suburb (Oxford University Press), an ethnographic study of the social organization of poverty in one suburb. Another line of research examines the causes and consequences of transportation insecurity. She received her PhD in sociology and social policy from Princeton University. Jason Owen-Smith is a professor of sociology, with an additional appointment as a research professor in the U-M Institute for Social Research and a courtesy appointment at the Ford School. Owen-Smith uses dynamic network methods with large scale data sets to examine topics relevant science policy, innovation, higher education, regional economic development and medical care. to He is the executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS). In 2008, he received the University of Michigan’s Henry Russel Award, which recognizes mid-career faculty for exceptional scholarship and conspicuous teaching ability. He received his MA and PhD in sociology at the University of Arizona. Bob Schoeni is a research professor at the Institute for Social Research and professor of economics with a courtesy appointment as a professor of public policy at the Ford School. He is also the coinvestigator of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a national panel survey of families assessing issues of poverty, income, family formation, wealth, and health since 1968. His teaching and research interests include program evaluation, welfare policy, economics and demographics of aging, labor economics, and immigration. He worked previously at RAND, where he was associate director of the Labor and Population Program and also served as senior economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in Washington, DC. Bob received his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan. Kristin S. Seefeldt is an associate professor of social work with a courtesy appointment at the Ford School. Her primary research interests lie in exploring how low-income individuals understand their situations, particularly around issues related to work and economic well-being. She is the author of Abandoned Families: Social Isolation in the 21st Century (Russell Sage Foundation, Working After Welfare (W.E. Upjohn Institute Press), America’s Poor and the Great Recession (Indiana University Press), as well as numerous journal articles. Currently, she is conducting research to understand how the decline of unionized jobs has affected the intergenerational well-being of families. Previously, Seefeldt was the assistant director of the National Poverty Center. Seefeldt holds a PhD in sociology and public policy from the University of Michigan and an MPP from the Ford School. Mel Stephens is professor of economics, with a courtesy appointment as a professor of public policy at the Ford School. He serves as a research affiliate at the Population Studies Center and a faculty associate at the Survey Research Center, both within the Institute for Social Research. Stephens is also affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research where he is currently a research associate. He also is a member of the Academic Research Council at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Stephens is a labor economist whose current research interests include consumption and savings, aging and retirement, education, the impact of local labor market fluctuations on household outcomes, and applied econometrics. He received his BA in economics and mathematics from the University of Maryland and his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan.
T he Fo r d S ch o o l a t Mi chi gan
19