Institution:
John L. Loeb Professor of Sociology and PVK Professor of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

Interests:
Social demography; race and ethnic relations; social stratification; immigration; racial and ethnic identity; measurement of race and ethnicity; impacts of natural disasters

Description:
Mary C. Waters is the John L. Loeb Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and the PVK Professor of Arts and Sciences. She specializes in the study of immigration, inter‑group relations, the formation of racial and ethnic identity among the children of immigrants, the challenges of measuring race and ethnicity, and the longitudinal impact of natural disasters. Waters received a BA in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, an MA in Demography, and an MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at Harvard since 1986, serving as chair of the Sociology Department from 2001 to 2005. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and three children.