Xi Song Named Inaugural Schiffman Family Presidential Associate Professor of Sociology

Xi Song has been named the inaugural Schiffman Family Presidential Associate Professor of Sociology. Song joined Penn’s Department of Sociology in 2019 as Associate Professor of Sociology and Demography. In 2021, Song received the William Julius Wilson Early Career Award from the American Sociological Association (ASA).

Song’s research interests include social mobility, occupations, Asian Americans, population studies, and quantitative methodology. Her early work utilized censuses, genealogies, and other data to explore how individuals and families create and reproduce economic advantages, and why they grow and decline across multiple generations.

Her current research investigates shifting career patterns in the United States. Developing a new occupational percentile rank measure, Song’s work examines how occupational structures are changing across workers’ life courses. Her current research also focuses on Asian Americans and the “Model Minority” narrative. Looking at educational and labor market outcomes and intergenerational mobility, this research highlights domains where Asian Americans have reached parity with Whites and where the “bamboo ceiling” persists. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Song has authored and co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed papers, which have received multiple awards from the ASA, the International Sociological Association, Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, and Demographic Research.

In addition, Song served as a Penn Faculty Fellow for the 2024 – 2025 academic year. She is also the Scientific and Tech Core Director of Penn’s Population Studies Center and Research Associate for the Population Aging Research Center. Her university service includes membership in the Data Driven Discovery Initiative, and she is a faculty organizer of the Quantitative Methodology Working Group and the Penn Summer Institute in Computational Social Science.

Jeremy N. Schiffman, W'97, and Abby Rosner Schiffman, C’97, established the Schiffman Family Presidential Professorship in 2021. Abby is a member of the Penn Arts & Sciences Ambassador Council. She is a former adjunct instructor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and previously taught high school English in San Francisco and New York City. Jeremy is a co-founder and managing partner of Palestra Capital Management. In addition to the endowed professorship, they have generously supported initiatives at Penn, including undergraduate financial aid and the Behavior Change for Good Initiative.