Paula Fomby, Ph.D.

I am a sociologist and family demographer. I study how families and social institutions interact to shape children’s well-being and life chances, with particular attention to economic and racialized inequalities. Much of my work focuses on children’s family composition – that is, the network of relationships among people who constitute a child’s family system. My research has been supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Science Foundation and has appeared in peer-reviewed outlets including Demography, Annual Review of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Journal of Health and Social Behavior.