The Cornell Center for Social Sciences (CCSS) has selected 12 faculty members from seven colleges for its 2025-26 Faculty Fellows cohort. These scholars will receive dedicated time and funding to advance groundbreaking research in their fields. Their projects, spanning historical and contemporary topics, include exploring the intersection of economics and climate science in determining climate change costs, identifying conditions for effective human-machine collaborations and enhancing the understanding and assessment of wellness among Black adolescent girls. 

The CCSS Faculty Fellows Program is designed to nurture the careers of outstanding social science faculty. Nominated by their deans, fellows receive a semester of course release in residence at CCSS. Past fellows have used this time to obtain major external funding support, write articles, draft book manuscripts, and conduct research. The program also offers professional development and opportunities for fellows to share their work, build interdisciplinary connections and collaborate with the broader social science community at Cornell. 

“The Faculty Fellows program ensures Cornell faculty have the resources they need to conduct high impact research that makes the world a better place,” said Peter Enns, the Robert S. Harrison director of CCSS and professor of government and public policy. 

“This is an exciting group of social sciences scholars from across the university,” said Heather Furnas, CCSS program coordinator. “This year’s fellowships will provide much-needed space and time for fellows to develop their crucial projects independently, but some intriguing overlap in topics and methodologies will also allow opportunities for support and engagement from their cohort.” 

The 2025-26 CCSS faculty fellows and their projects include: 

• Ana Bento (Public & Ecosystem Health in the College of Veterinary Medicine): Integrating Ecology and Economic Behavior: A Mechanistic Framework for Preventing, Predicting and Controlling Disease Spillover Risks
• Cristobal Cheyre Forestier (Information Science, Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science): Investigating the Impact of Online Tracking, Targeting, and Advertising on Consumer Welfare and Online Behaviors
• Ding Fei (City and Regional Planning, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning): The Urban Specter of Global China in Africa
• Daniel Hirschman (Sociology, College of Arts and Sciences): The Costs of Climate Change
• Misha Inniss-Thompson (Psychology, College of Human Ecology): Toward a Culturally Relevant Assessment of Psychological and Emotional Safety
• Nori Jacoby (Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences): Co-Creating with AI: Understanding the Conditions for Effective Human-Machine Collaboration
• Sadé Lindsay (Public Policy and Sociology, Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy): A Turning Point or Burden? An Intersectional Analysis of Parental Status Effects on Problem-Solving Court Engagement
• Rachel Sandwell (History, College of Arts and Sciences): Freedom Fighters, NGOs, and Church Men: Africa's National Liberation Moment and the Politics of Solidarity
• Casey Schmitt (History, College of Arts and Sciences): The Study of Slavery and Slaving Practices across Oceanic Spaces in the Sixteenth-and Seventeenth-Century Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Atlantic Worlds
• Noah Tamarkin (Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies, College of Arts and Sciences): Juridical Genetics: Building Postcolonial Carceral Futures
• Maria Taylor (Landscape Architecture, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences): Urban Greening Across the USSR: A History of Soviet Urban Environmental and Microclimate Design
• Kurt Waldman (Global Development, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences): Making Sustainable Supply Chain Initiatives More Transparent, Robust and Scalable 

Michelle Lucio is the administrative coordinator for the Cornell Center for Social Sciences.