Research Showcase
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 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 and analyzed what promoted impressive upward mobility for most, and blocked mobility for many. While most studies done in other places in the last 40 years found second generation college graduation rates of 13-14%, Smith’s study and the Census show much higher rates – 42% of US-born Mexican men and 49% of women have graduated college.
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 wave of baby boomers signifies a major generational shift in U.S. labor markets, impacting entitlement programs like Social Security Old Age benefits. With approximately 76 million individuals in this cohort, this transition will have lasting effects. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these trends, accelerating retirement rates among boomers of all ages. The study aims to systematically analyze how COVID-19 has influenced aging, labor force exit, and Social Security Old Age benefit uptake among boomers, with a focus on racial/ethnic and gender disparities. By addressing key research questions, we seek to understand the pandemic’s impact on health, labor force participation, retirement behavior, and Social Security solvency among these cohorts.
Learn more about our Health Care Policy and Social justice MPA tracks
Learn more about Frank Heiland and his research
Learn more about Na Yin and her research
Professor Deborah Balk co-wrote “A Framework for Aging and Health Vulnerabilities in a Changing Climate”, which was published by Nature Climate Change in 2024. In this century, there are historically unprecedented shares of older adult populations with an unfolding set of health-related challenges associated with climate change. Building on existing evidence that focuses on climate–ageing, ageing–health and health–climate connections, this summarizes ageing trends and the biophysical, socio-demographic, cultural and contextual pathways that shape the disproportionate impacts of climate-related environmental stress on older adults’ health.
Read “A Framework for Aging and Health Vulnerabilities in a Changing Climate”
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.
“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.
Learn more about 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.
Learn more about the Higher Education Administration program at the Marxe School
