Research Showcase
Real-time Research. Real-world Impact.
Our world-class Marxe faculty produces applied research that informs policy in real-time. It changes minds. It impacts our collective future.
Learn about some of the groundbreaking work of our faculty below.
Professor Robert Courtney Smith’s Dreams Achieved and Denied: Mexican Intergenerational Mobility was published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2024 through the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series.
Over more than twenty years, Smith followed nearly 100 children of Mexican immigrants, examining the factors that promote upward mobility as well as those that create barriers. While many studies over the past 40 years have found second-generation college graduation rates of 13–14%, Smith’s research—along with U.S. Census data—shows significantly higher rates: 42% of U.S.-born Mexican men and 49% of women have graduated from college.
Read more about Dreams Achieved and Denied: Mexican Intergenerational Mobility.
Learn more about Professor Robert Courtney Smith’s research and publications.
Co-written by Professor Frank Heiland and Associate Professor Na Yin, “Accelerated Aging and Early Retirement Due to COVID-19: Is it Happening and How Are Different Racial/Ethnic Groups Affected?” was presented by Professor Frank Heiland at the 2024 APPAM conference. (This research was conducted in collaboration with Mara Getz Sheftel, PhD.)
The ongoing retirement of baby boomers represents a major generational shift in U.S. labor markets, with significant implications for entitlement programs such as Social Security Old Age benefits. With approximately 76 million individuals in this cohort, the transition will have lasting effects.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated retirement trends across this population. This study examines how the pandemic has influenced aging, labor force exit, and Social Security benefit uptake, with particular attention to racial/ethnic and gender disparities. It also explores broader impacts on health, workforce participation, retirement behavior, and long-term Social Security solvency.
Explore the Health Care Policy and Social Justice MPA tracks.
View Professor Frank Heiland’s research and publications.
View Associate Professor Na Yin’s research and publications.
“Assistant Professor Rhiannon Neilsen published her article “Coding protection: ‘cyber humanitarian interventions’ for preventing mass atrocities” in International Affairs in 2023. It was nominated by the journal for ‘Best Paper by an Early Career Researcher’ in 2024. In the article, Professor Neilsen introduces the concept of ‘cyber humanitarian interventions’—the use of sophisticated cyber operations and online influence campaigns to populations from genocides, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in the 21st century. The article argues that cyber humanitarian interventions can constitute a new tool in the atrocity prevention toolbox.
View Assistant Professor Rhiannon Neilsen’s research and publications.
Explore the Master of International Affairs’ Global Security track.
Assistant Professor Ashley N. Gaskew
Faculty Members at For-Profit Institutions: A Struggle for Autonomy and Acceptance
Assistant Professor Ashley Gaskew was named winner of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges 2025 grant. Gaskew explores the dynamics of socioeconomic policies, faculty experiences, & institutional cultures, along with the roles and contributions of for-profit & community college institutions. Dr. Gaskew’s project will study how community colleges support faculty mental health.
View Assistant Professor Ashley Gaskew’s research and publications.
Professor Angie Beeman
Racist Targeting and Denial in Academia: The Ineffectiveness of Current Policies and Practices to Ad
Professor Angie Beeman co-wrote “Racist Targeting and Denial in Academia: The Ineffectiveness of Current Policies and Practices to Address Evolving Forms of Racism,” which was published in Race Ethnicity and Education in 2024. Research on bullying and harassment consistently shows that reporting these incidents often leads to retaliation. This article applies the lens of systemic and everyday racism theory to analyze faculty and staff experiences with racist targeting. The findings highlight weaknesses in the implementation of policies that fail to address contemporary forms of racism. This project, along with Beeman’s book, Liberal White Supremacy: How Progressives Silence Racial and Class Oppression, was featured on a 2025 episode of Academic Aunties.
