Sara McLanahan
Sara S. McLanahan is an American sociologist.
She is the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of Houston and her PhD in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin, and she previously taught at the University of Wisconsin.
At Princeton, McLanahan is the founding director of the , a principal investigator of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, director of the , and director of the .
McLanahan is editor-in-chief of the journal The Future of Children and a trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation. She served as president of the Population Association of America in 2004, was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2005, and, in 2011, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
She was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
She is known for her work on the family as a major institution in the American stratification system. Her early work examined the consequences of divorce and remarriage for parents and children, and her recent work focuses on families formed by unmarried parents. She is interested in the effects of family structure on social inequality and the roles that public policies can play in addressing the needs of families and children.Honors and awards
She was American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow of 2019.Selected works
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