Tamkinat Rauf

Assistant professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison

I’m interested in all sorts of processes that shape human happiness and suffering, ranging from macrosocial and cultural influences to biological differences, and the intervening social psychological, familial, and life course dynamics. Some of my research investigates the effects of life events and exposures, such as unemployment & reemployment, bereavement, income, and changes in the political context. Other work focuses on gene-environment correlation in depression. 

These interests also extend to curiosity about how people make choices that ultimately impact their individual or collective outcomes, which motivates a second stream of my research on preferences and attitudes. I have studied social network influences on the political attitudes of college students and examined how exposure to information about happiness influences Americans’ attitudes about redistribution. In ongoing work, I am thinking about the cognitive processes involved in preference articulation.

I use a variety of quantitative methods and enjoy thinking about ways to improve research practices. I actively engage in opportunities to promote open science (see article on advances in open science practices) and to learn from meta-science (see a study about lessons from an audit of 100 social science experiments).

I recieved my PhD in sociology from Stanford University. My dissertation examined the relationship between income and wellbeing.