About Ruby Mendenhall
Biography
Ruby Mendenhall holds joint faculty appointments in Sociology, African American Studies, Urban and Regional Planning, and Social Work. She is also an affiliate of the Institute of Geonomic Biology and the Institute for Computing in Humanities. She is currently a Fellow at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on issues of social inequality over the life course and the role of public policy and individuals’ agency in facilitating social and economic mobility. She uses quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze administrative welfare and employment data, census data, in-depth interviews, and focus group data. Her publications have appeared in academic journals such as Social Forces, Social Science Research, Demography, Housing Policy Debate, The Review of Black Political Economy, and The Black Scholar. She is currently involved in a multi-site study, Investing in Enduring Resources using the Earned Income Tax Credit, which examines how low- to moderate-income families use their EITC for social and economic mobility in Champaign and Boston. She is also involved in a study that examines job loss among middle-class and upper middle-class professionals and executives, and their efforts to avoid downward mobility, and she continues to research the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program.
Education
- PhD, Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, 2004
- MPP, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, 1994
- BS, Health Science Center, Occupational Therapy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1986
Research and publications
Ongoing and upcoming research
Ongoing and Upcoming Research
Race and residential housing patterns, social networks, stress and health, life-course and developmental pathways, and public policy.
Selected publications
Andrade, F. C. D., Kramer, K. Z., Greenlee, A., Williams, A. N., & Mendenhall, R. (2019). Impact of the Chicago Earned Income Tax Periodic Payment intervention on food security. Preventive Medicine Reports, 16, [100993]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2019.100993
Brown, N. M., Mendenhall, R., Black, M., Moer, M. V., Flynn, K., McKee, M., Zerai, A., Lourentzou, I., & Zhai, C. X. (2019). In Search of Zora/When Metadata Isn’t Enough: Rescuing the Experiences of Black Women Through Statistical Modeling. Journal of Library Metadata, 19(3-4), 141-162. https://doi.org/10.1080/19386389.2019.1652967
Kramer, K., Andrade, F. C. D., Greenlee, A. J., Mendenhall, R., Bellisle, D., & Lemons Blanks, R. (2019). Periodic Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Payment, Financial Stress and Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 40(3), 511-523. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-019-09618-2
Lewis, J. A., Mendenhall, R., Ojiemwen, A., Thomas, M., Riopelle, C., Harwood, S. A., & Browne Huntt, M. (2019). Racial Microaggressions and Sense of Belonging at a Historically White University. American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219859613
Yeo, H. J. T., Mendenhall, R., Harwood, S. A., & Huntt, M. B. (2019). Asian international student and asian American student: Mistaken identity and racial microaggressions. Journal of International Students, 9(1), 39-65. https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v9i1.278