US National Academy of Science Member Paula England Joins NYUAD Faculty

December 7, 2022

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that US National Academy of Sciences member Paula England will join the NYU Abu Dhabi standing faculty as Professor of Social Research and Public Policy on September 1, 2023.

As many of you know, Paula has been an affiliated faculty member at NYU Abu Dhabi since 2011 and, in 2021, became Dean of Social Science. She is currently Professor of Sociology and Silver Professor of Arts and Sciences at NYU New York University, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Applied Social and Economic Research at NYU Shanghai.

Paula received her BA in Sociology and Psychology from Whitman College, an MA in Social Sciences and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Before coming to NYU, Paula served as a professor at the University of Texas-Dallas, University of Arizona, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, and Stanford University.

One branch of Paula’s pioneering, multifaceted research portfolio concerns gender inequality at work and at home; she has written on the gender gap in pay, occupational segregation, how couples divide housework, and the wage penalty for motherhood. She has also studied changing family patterns in the US and how they differ by social class, showing for example that disadvantaged single young adults have  higher rates of unintended pregnancies. She has also done research on changes in sexual behavior among youth and young adults.

Paula is the author of two books – Households, Employment, and Gender: A Social, Economic, and Demographic view (1986, with George Farkas) and Comparable Worth: Theories and Evidence (1992). She is editor or co-editor of Theory on Gender / Feminism on Theory (1993), The New Economic Sociology (2002), Unmarried Couples with Children (2007), and Social Class and Changing Families in an Unequal America (2011). She has also authored countless book chapters and journal articles in prestigious journals like the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Demography, Social Forces, and PNAS.

Paula’s seminal research contributions have been recognized by many coveted awards and honors. She was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2018. The American Sociological Association recognized Paula with the Jessie Bernard Award for Distinguished Scholarship on Gender in 1999; she received an honorary doctorate from Whitman College in 2007; she was elected the Frances Perkins Fellow by the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2009; the American Sociological Association's Section on Sociology of the Family recognized her with a Distinguished Career Award in 2010; in 2015 the Population Association of America awarded her the Harriet Presser award for research on gender and demography; and in 2019 the American Sociological Association’s section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Section awarded her the Robert M. Hauser Distinguished Scholar Award “to mark...the field’s most fundamental accomplishments.”

In university administration, governance, and professional service, Paula was elected as President of the American Sociological Association from 2014 to 2015 and was editor of the American Sociological Review from 1994 to 1996. She has served as Department Chair, as well as Director and co-Director of Graduate Studies, in the Sociology Department at NYU. She was  Director of the Women’s Studies Program and the Director of the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Pennsylvania. In her first job, and University of Texas at Dallas, she was elected president of the Association of Women Faculty.

Please join me in welcoming Paula to our community as a member of our standing faculty.

Arlie