Marta Tienda is Maurice P. During ’22 Professor of Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where she directed the Office of Population from 1998-2002. Prior to joining the Princeton faculty in 1997, Dr. Tienda held appointments at the University of Chicago, where she served as chair of the Department of Sociology and editor of the American Journal of Sociology, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Dr. Tienda is past president of the Population Association of America, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. She is an external fellow of The American Institutes for Research.
Professor Tienda’s research has focused on the demography of racial and ethnic inequality, social policy, and international migration. In addition to lecturing about underinvestment in public education, she directed a decade-long study about equity and access to higher education, and is currently studying the formation of teen romantic relationships using diaries administered on smartphones.
Dr. Tienda is an independent trustee of the Teachers Insurance Annuity Association (TIAA), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation, the Jacobs Foundation of Switzerland, and the Urban Institute. Previously she has served on the boards of Brown University, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation.
Dr. Tienda received a B.A. from Michigan State University (Spanish, 1972) and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin (1976).