Dalton Conley

Dean for the Social Sciences & University Professor
New York University

Dalton Conley is currently Dean for the Social Sciences, as well as University Professor at New York University. He also holds appointments at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service, as an Adjunct Professor of Community Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and as a Senior Advisor to the UN Millennium Project. He has previously taught at Princeton and Yale.

Conley’s research focuses on the determinants of economic opportunity within and across generations. In this vein, he studies sibling differences in socioeconomic success; racial inequalities; the salience of physical appearance to economic status; the measurement of class; and how health and biology affect (and are affected by) social position. His publications include six books, three edited volumes and numerous peer-reviewed articles. In 2005, he became the first sociologist to win the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, given annually to one young researcher in any field of science, mathematics or engineering.

Conley holds a B.A. from the University of California – Berkeley and an M.P.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, as well as an M.S. in Biology from NYU. He is currently pursing a second Ph.D. in Biology at the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at NYU. A frequent contributor to the mainstream media, a selection of Dean Conley’s essays, academic articles and books can be found at his homepage: homepages.nyu.edu/~dc66.