APC Fellows 2024-25

Elizabeth Ackert (she/her), Broom Center for Demography, UC Santa Barbara
University of Washington, Seattle, 2015, Sociology
My individual and collaborative work examines explanations for why racial/ethnic and immigrant-origin groups are unequally distributed across contexts– including schools, neighborhoods, and immigrant destinations– and evaluates the consequences of this contextual inequality for disparities in outcomes in domains such as education, residential mobility, and health.
Website

Aaron Arredondo (he/him), Population Research Lab, Utah State University
University of Missouri, 2022, Sociology
I have established a research perspective named the spatialization of critical migration studies. It centers the lived experiences of racialized immigrant groups in the socio-spatial domains of community and work across U.S. maturing immigrant destinations.
Website

Darina Bassil (she/her), Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard University
Imperial College London, 2018, Public Health
Darina Bassil is a neuroepidemiologist and research scientist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, at T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research interests lie in the field of cognitive neuropsychology and neuroepidemiology, with a special focus on (1) understanding the cross-cultural variations in factors that influence neuropsychological test performance; (2) assessing the feasibility and reliability of common neuropsychological instruments to improve international harmonization; and (3) evaluating the associations between risk factors and dementia outcomes, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Darina is a co-investigator on the Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an In-Depth Community in South Africa (HAALSI) and serves as the project director of the HAALSI-Dementia study (Cognitive Function, Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders in the HAALSI Cohort), investigating the prevalence, incidence and risk factors of cognitive decline and dementia in South Africa.
Website

Jennifer Candipan (she/her), Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University
University of Southern California, Sociology, 2019
My broad research interests are in stratification, urban sociology, sociology of education, and spatial analysis, with specific interests in how social and spatial contexts, like neighborhoods and schools, shape opportunities and produce racial/ethnic, health, and economic inequality.
Website

Christy L. Erving (she/her), Population Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Indiana University, Bloomington, 2014, Sociology
Using theories, concepts, and perspectives from various disciplines, Dr. Erving’s program of research focuses on clarifying and explaining status distinctions in health. Her most recent projects investigate the psychosocial determinants of Black women’s health across the life course, spanning early adulthood through later life. Her work integrates sociological theoretical perspectives with insights from other disciplines to ascertain how Black women’s gendered and racialized life experiences both negatively and positively influence psychological and physiological health.
Website

Abigail Greenleaf (she/her), Columbia Population Research Center, Columbia University
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, 2019, Reproductive Health Demography
Dr. Abigail (Abba) Greenleaf is a public health demographer whose research focuses on collecting data in low- and middle-income countries where using cell phones to survey populations is an increasingly viable methodology. She has conducted cell phone surveys on a number of topics ranging from infectious disease to (currently) reproductive health.
Website

Arun Hendi (he/him), Office of Population Research, Princeton University
University of Pennsylvania, 2015, Demography and Sociology
My research focuses on formal demography and inequalities in mortality and life expectancy. My current project examines how migration (both domestic and international) within the U.S. and other high-income countries influences geographic inequalities in mortality.
Website

Ying Huang (she/her), Institute of Health Disparity Research, University of Texas at San Antonio
SUNY Albany, 2018, Sociology
My research focuses on the intersection of population health, ecological context, and urban stratification. Using various large-scale national and longitudinal data, I investigate how policies, institutions, and macro- and meso-level variables contribute to and perpetuate inequalities in neighborhood environments and health across the life course.
Website

Sarah Komisarow (she/her), Duke University Population Research Institute, Duke University
University of Chicago, 2016, Economics
The central aim of my research agenda is to produce causal evidence that informs public policies designed to improve the lives of children, particularly those who are contemporaneously disadvantaged in the United States. Much of the work in my research portfolio focuses on the causal effects of interventions within and adjacent to K-12 public schools in the U.S. I have also published papers in the economics of crime and public health when my initial education-focused lines of inquiry have compelled me (and my co-authors) to more deeply explore the mechanisms and factors that shape how public policies in and around K-12 public schools affect children.
Website

Joel Mittleman (he/him), Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania
Princeton University, 2019, Sociology
My research analyzes inequality in schools and society with a focus on LGBTQ+ populations. Across projects, I show how LGBTQ+ populations encourage new ways of conceptualizing gender and new approaches to measuring the dynamics of gender inequality. As such, much of my research advances innovative methods for analyzing gender inequality beyond the binary categories of female and male.
Website

Courtney S. Thomas Tobin (she/her), California Center for Population Research, University of California-Los Angeles
Vanderbilt University, 2015, Sociology
Courtney S. Thomas Tobin, PhD is an Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and the Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion at the Fielding School of Public Health. She is also a Faculty Affiliate of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies and holds a joint appointment in the Department of African American Studies at UCLA. Dr. Thomas Tobin’s research examines the social, psychological, and biological (i.e., biopsychosocial) pathways to health and longevity among Black Americans. As a trained medical sociologist, Dr. Thomas Tobin integrates traditional sociological theories with perspectives from public health, social psychology, medicine, and the biological sciences to better understand the causes and consequences of long-standing Black-White differences in health. She utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methods to consider the multiple ways that racial minority status shapes the everyday experiences and health trajectories of Black Americans across the life course. Dr. Thomas Tobin’s program of research makes conceptual and empirical contributions to three interrelated areas of inquiry: (1) psychosocial pathways to embodiment; (2) health risks and resources across the life course; and (3) racialized stress and coping processes among Black Americans.
Website

Yun Zhou (she/her), Population Studies Center, University of Michigan
Harvard University, 2017, Sociology
Trained as a family demographer, I examine social inequality and state-market-family relations through the lens of gender, marriage, and reproduction. My primary interests include gender, low fertility, union formation, politics of reproduction, population policy, and innovative methods. My work combines statistical analysis of survey data, original in-depth interviews, and agent-based computational modeling. Intersecting the studies of population and politics, my current project investigates the demographic, political, and gendered consequences of China’s evolving reproductive governance.
Website