I am currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Demography at the Pennsylvania State University. I received a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2013. I recently finished my tenure as a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan where I conducted research on mental health among college students and stigma across college campuses. My research and teaching interests include race and ethnicity, inequality, the sociology of education, education policy, higher education, mental health, and experimental methods.

Generally, my research focuses on two primary areas: racial discrimination and educational inequality. In some of my most recent projects I have investigated the scientific accuracy of methods examining racial discrimination, the influence of racial discrimination on neighborhood choice, and the ways that educational credentials interact with race to magnify or reduce discrimination. I often collect my own data and use field and survey experiments in my work, but I am also well-versed in a wide range of quantitative methods. My research has been published in the American Journal of Sociology, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Social Forces, and Social Science Research, among other journals and funded by the National Academy of Education, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.

My deep interest in and interrogation of the audit method led me to a role as editor and contributor to the first ever major work exclusively on this method titled Audit Studies: Behind the Scenes with Theory, Method, and Nuance, under contract with Springer. Additionally, I am scheduled to teach a three-day short course on experimental methods, including a day on audits, in January at the annual Arizona Methods Workshops.

Believe it or not, I (sometimes) do things unrelated to research and teaching! Some of my non-academic interests include music, hiking, running, photography, coffee, and cooking.

Contact:

The Pennsylvania State University

Department of Sociology

503 Oswald Tower

p: 814.863.4399

e: mgaddis AT psu.edu