Human Centered

Political conflicts related to immigration are thorny enough on their own. The issues and challenges intensify once we add to the mix our warming planet and its relationship to migration, immigration, and human displacement. Two 2024-25 CASBS fellows – Maureen Eger, a sociologist of immigration, and Alice Farmer, a refugee lawyer specializing in climate change and displacement – discuss scholarly and policy dimensions of the climate migration landscape in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Markoff (CASBS fellow, 2017-18).

Maureen Eger: USC faculty page | personal website | Google Scholar page |

Alice Farmer: LinkedIn page | 

Read John Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand  (Penguin Random House, 2022). John's next book, expected in 2027, will be published by MIT Press.

Referenced in the episode or related works

L. Yang, M. Eger, and Link, eds. Migration Stigma: Understanding Prejudice, Discrimination, and Exclusion (MIT Press, 2024)

M. Eger and S Valdez, "From Radical Right to Neo-nationalist," European Political Scientist (2019)

M. Eger, M. Hjerm, and P. Velasquez, "What is the Liberalizing Potential of Higher Education? An Analysis of Academic Fields and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Across 32 Countries," The British Journal of Sociology (2025)

M. O'Brien and M. Eger, "Suppression, Spikes, and Stigma: How COVID-19 Will Shape International Migration and Hostilities toward It," International Migration Review (2020)

L. Yang, M. Eger, and B. Link, "The Human Cost of Politicizing Immigration: Migration Stigma, US Politics, and Health," JAMA (2024)

A. Farmer and K. Linos, "Tools to Finance Climate Mobility: An Introduction to the Symposium," American Journal of International Law (2025)

A. Farmer, "Disasters in Slow Motion: Why Climate Displacement Tests International Legal Frameworks, and What to Do about it," University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (2026)

J. Bittle, The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration (Simon & Schuster, 2024)

G. Vince, Nomad Century: How Climate Migration will Reshape our World (Macmillan, 2022)

A. Lustgarten, On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America (Macmillan, 2024)

T. Hale, Long Problems: Climate Change and the Challenge of Governing Across Time (Princeton Univ. Press, 2024)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University
Explore CASBS: website | Bluesky | X | YouTube |LinkedIn | podcast | latest newsletter | signup | outreach​
Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel

Urban settings are the grounds upon which immigration stress-tests the strength of democratic values, institutions, and practices. In this audio version of a live event hosted by CASBS on May 6, 2026, CASBS board member and Stanford sociologist Tomás Jiménez, Oxford economist and 2025-26 CASBS fellow Ian Goldin, and Welcoming America executive director Rachel Perić discuss what we can learn from the experience of immigrant cities, especially those that intentionally decide to enable newcomers and long-time residents to flourish together. Hosted in partnership with Stanford's Institute for Advancing Just Societies.

Watch the event video and read an article about the event: https://casbs.stanford.edu/news/immigrant-cities-and-democracys-future

View a photo gallery from the event: https://casbs.stanford.edu/photo-gallery-what-can-immigrant-cities-teach-us-about-democracy

View the promotional flyer for this event: https://mailchi.mp/df7b0f4c4589/casbs-event-immigrant-cities-democracy?e=c2d0812d02

Learn more about:

event moderator Tomás Jiménez: https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/tomas-r-jimenez

panelist Ian Goldin: https://iangoldin.org/

panelist Rachel Perić: https://welcomingamerica.org/bio/rachel-peric/

The Institute for Advancing Just Societies: https://justsocieties.stanford.edu/

the Robert A. Scott Lecture: https://casbs.stanford.edu/news/new-lectureship-fund-honors-bob-scott

Bob Scott was featured on the Human Centered podcast in December 2022 (ep. 57), "Bob Scott is Trending": https://human-centered.simplecast.com/episodes/robertscott

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University
Explore CASBS: website | Bluesky | X | YouTube |LinkedIn | podcast | latest newsletter | signup | outreach​
Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel

Matthew O. Jackson is perhaps the world’s most renowned scholar of the economics of networks; as a 2005-06 CASBS fellow, he wrote most of his still-influential book Social and Economic Networks. In this wide-ranging conversation with 2025-26 CASBS fellow Rajiv Sethi, Jackson discusses his foundational work on strategic modeling of networks, empirical applications on the role of economic connectedness in influencing people’s life trajectories in the U.S., related multi-disciplinary and cross-national work he is undertaking at the Santa Fe Institute, and recent cutting-edge work using large language models to gain insights into human motivations and behaviors.

Matthew O. Jackson: Stanford faculty page | Personal website | CASBS page | Wikipedia page | Google Scholar page | National Academy of Sciences bio | Stanford profile | SFI page | NBER working papers | Jackson CV |

Rajiv Sethi: Barnard faculty page | Columbia page | CASBS page | Google Scholar page | SFI page | Rajiv's Substack newsletter, Imperfect Information | 

Matt Jackson works referenced in this episode:

Matthew Jackson and Asher Wolinsky, "A Strategic Model of Social and Economic Networks," Journal of Economic Theory (1996)

Matthew Jackson and Alison Watts, "The Evolution of Social and Economic Networks," Journal of Economic Theory (2002)

Raj Chetty, Matthew Jackson, et al., "Social Capital I: Measurement and Associations with Economic Mobiliity," Nature (2022)

Raj Chetty, Matthew Jackson, et al., "Social Capital II: Determinants of Economic Connectedness," Nature (2022)

Chetty, Jackson, et al., Opportunity Insights Social Capital Atlas (website)

Dynamics of Wealth Inequality project (Santa Fe Institute)

Matthew Jackson, Social and Economic Networks, Princeton University Press (2008)

Matthew Jackson, The Human Network, Penguin Random House (2020)

Mei, Yuan, and Jackson, "A Turing Test of Whether AI Chatbots are Behaviorally Similar to Humans," PNAS (2024)

Xie, Mei, Yuan, and Jackson, "Using Large Language Models to Categorize Strategic Situations and Decipher Motivations Behind Human Behaviors," PNAS (2025)

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Rajiv Sethi's latest op-ed is "Polymarket Anonymity Must End," Financial Times (May 7, 2026)

Subscribe to Rajiv's Substack newsletter, Imperfect Information

 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University
Explore CASBS: website | Bluesky | X | YouTube |LinkedIn | podcast | latest newsletter | signup | outreach​
Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel

Human interactions occur in a variety of contexts. When interactions are marked by conflict, misunderstanding, bias, or aggression, 2024-25 CASBS fellow Katy DeCelles illuminates the micro-sociological and social-psychological dynamics that contribute to the sub-optimal interaction outcomes, enabling the formulation of corrective solutions and better organizational design. DeCelles discusses a sampling of her innovative work in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Markoff (CASBS fellow, 2017-18).

Katherine (Katy) DeCelles: Univ. of Toronto faculty page | Google Scholar page | Poets & Quants profile | 

DeCelles work discussed & relevant resources:

"Scale Dichotomization Reduces Customer Racial Discrimination and Income Inequality," Nature 639, 19 February 2025

"Racial Bias Eliminated When Ratings Switch from Five Stars to Thumbs Up or Down," Nature, 19 February 2025

"How Gig Platforms Can Mitigate Racial Bias in Ratings," Harvard Business Review, 14 March 2025

"Different or Impartial? Actor-Observer Asymmetries in Expressing and Evaluating Sociopolitical Neutrality," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 154(11), 2025

"Understanding the Dynamics of Workplace Violence Can Improve Employee Health and Safety," Rotman School of Management, Univ. of Toronto, 2022

John Markoff: website |

John's latest book is Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand (Penguin Random House, 2022). His next book (forthcoming, 2027), will be published by MIT Press.

 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University
Explore CASBS: website | Bluesky | X | YouTube |LinkedIn | podcast | latest newsletter | signup | outreach​
Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel

In his first visit since to CASBS since his 1996-97 fellowship, UC Berkeley economist David Card lifts the veil behind the innovative empirical work on the labor market effects of immigration, minimum wages, and education that earned him the Nobel Prize in 2021. In conversation with 2024-25 CASBS fellow Dylan Connor, Card also explores issues and questions involving the relationships among geography, social and labor mobility, and wealth inequalities.

DAVID CARD: UC Berkeley page | Berkeley economics page | Wikipedia page | Nobel Prize page | Google Scholar page | Berkeley Nobel Prize article | 

DYLAN CONNOR: ASU page | Google Scholar page | 

Work emerging from David Card's CASBS year

"Immigrant Inflows, Native Outflows, and the Local Labor Market Impacts of Higher Immigration," Journal of Labor Economics (2001)
"Would Financial Incentives for Leaving Welfare Lead Some People to Stay on Welfare Longer?" NBER Working Paper (1997)
"Adapting to Circumstances: The Evolution of Work, School, and Living Arrangements among North American Youth," in Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000)
"School Finance Reform, the Distribution of School Spending, and the Distribution of Student Test Scores," Journal of Public Economics (2002)
"The More Things Change: Immigrants and the Children of Immigrants in the 1940s, the 1970s, and the 1990s," in Issues in the Economics of Immigration (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000)

Other CASBS fellows mentioned in this episode

Orley Ashenfelter (1989-90)

Alan B. Krueger (1999-2000)

Roberto M. Fernandez (1996-97)

Robert D. Putnam (1974-75, 1988-89)

Min Zhou (2005-06)

 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University
Explore CASBS: website | Bluesky | X | YouTube |LinkedIn | podcast | latest newsletter | signup | outreach​
Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel