Marta Tienda

Marta Tienda is a Professor in Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where she directed the Office of Population Research from 1998 - 2002. She is the founding director of Princeton’s Program in Latino Studies. Previously she was Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, where she served as department chair. She has held positions at the University of Wisconsin, and Stanford and Brown Universities (as visiting professor). Professor Tienda received honorary doctorates from Ohio State University, Lehman College and Bank Street College of Education. She is one of ten women featured in the Women’s Adventures in Science biography series published by the National Academy of Sciences (2005).

Professor Tienda is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Earnest Burgess Fellow of the American Academy for Political and Social Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also past president (2002) of the Population Association of America and past board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Her research interests include ethnic and racial stratification, poverty and social policy, and the sociology of international migration.

She is the author, coauthor, or editor of numerous articles and books, including Multiple Origins, Uncertain Destinies: Hispanics and the American Future (2006); Hispanics and the Future of America (2006); Ethnicity and Causal Mechanisms (2005), Youth in Cities (2002), The Color of Opportunity: Families, Welfare and Work in the Inner City (2001), Divided Opportunities: Minorities, Poverty, and Social Policy (1988), The Hispanic Population of the United States (1987), and Hispanics in the U.S. Economy (1985).

Professor Tienda has served as trustee for several philanthropic organizations, including the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the W.T. Grant Foundation. She also served on the Corporation of Brown University. Currently she is trustee of the Jacobs Foundation of Switzerland and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and a board member of TIAA.

Professor Tienda received a B.A. in Spanish Literature from Michigan State University (Honors College) (1972) and a Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Texas at Austin (1976).