Professor Joya Misra (sociology and public policy) is one of six university faculty members chosen to be a Family Research Scholar at the Center for Research on Families (CRF) during the 2013-14 academic year.
As the selected scholars prepare significant grant proposals focused on family research, CRF provides them with time, technical expertise, peer mentorship and consultation with national experts. The program aims to bring together a diverse group of faculty from throughout the UMass community to foster innovation and collaboration across research areas related to the family.
Misra’s research explores how and why inequalities develop over time across different countries’ poverty and labor markets. Her analyses are focused through the lenses of class, race and ethnicity, citizenship and gender. She has served as the editor of the journal Gender & Society since 2011. The grant proposal that Misra will develop during her time as a CRF scholar centers around a new examination of the relationship between gender and earnings in 18 advanced industrialized countries between 1985 and 2010.
CRF’s mission is to increase research on family issues; build a multidisciplinary community of researchers who are studying issues of relevance to families; connect national and internationally prominent family researchers with UMass faculty and students; provide advanced data analytic methods training and consultation; and disseminate family research findings to scholars, families, practitioners and policymakers. The other 2013-14 scholars are Elizabeth Harvey and Agnès Lacreuse (psychology); Jonathan Rosa (anthropology); Gwyneth Rost (communication disorders); and Lisa Troy (nutrition).