Jennifer Laird

Jennifer Laird is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY), with additional research affiliations at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. She employs quantitative methodologies to investigate poverty, inequality, and energy insecurity in the United States, with a focus on policy impacts and immigrant populations.

• Education: Ph.D. in Sociology, University of Washington

Research Interests: Her work uncovers overlooked trends in public sector employment inequality, state-level poverty variability, and the vulnerability of U.S. citizen children to immigration policy changes. Recent publications examine energy insecurity using spatial analysis and geospatial modeling.

Scientific Contributions: Jennifer's peer-reviewed outputs include a foundational book on energy insecurity (2025), studies on health impacts of energy hardship (2024), and utility disconnection risks (2022), reflecting her expertise in data visualization and quantitative policy analysis.

Scientific Awards:

• 2014 Honorable Mention, Student Paper Award, ASA Population Section

Teaching: Courses taught include Sociology 301: Methods of Social Research, Sociology 353: Visualizing Data, and PTS3 Workshop on Research Methods. Former teaching assistant roles at the University of Washington involved advanced statistics and stratification courses.

Media Engagement: Her research has been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, HuffPost, and The New York Times Magazine, focusing on immigration policy impacts and energy insecurity in policy contexts. She has actively documented the policy-driven decline in public assistance enrollment among immigrant households.