ILR Welcomes Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow
Celene Reynolds, who studies social change, law and organizations, and gender and sexualities, is one of Cornell’s eight new Presidential Postdoctoral Fellows.
Reynolds graduated this spring with a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University. Her faculty sponsor is Pamela Tolbert, the Lois S. Gray Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Social Sciences.
The Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is an initiative created in 2017 to attract some of the world’s best young academics to the university. The program encompasses research-based disciplines across the Ithaca campus, at Cornell Tech in New York City and Cornell AgriTech in Geneva. The new fellows represent fields in the life sciences, the humanities, social sciences and the physical sciences.
“I’m happy to welcome this group of talented, accomplished scholars to Cornell,” President Martha E. Pollack told the “Cornell Chronicle.” “The university is committed to leadership in research, and I look forward to the contributions of these distinguished new members of our community.”
Reynolds is a published scholar with numerous grants and awards for her research. Currently, she is studying how anti-discrimination law has been interpreted differently over time, despite the letter of the law remaining the same. Her dissertation centers on the change in how Title IX – the 1972 U.S. civil rights law prohibiting sexual discrimination in education and other programs receiving federal funding – has been applied.
The project has received support from the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation and the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy.
“I'm delighted to join the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Program,” Reynolds said. “It gives me three years to finish my book and to begin work on my next major project. This time is a gift. Cornell is also an especially exciting place to be for my research – which spans sociology, organizational behavior, law and other disciplines – and the program provides a wonderful space for cross-disciplinary conversations.”
“For me, this was the main draw of the program. I'm thrilled to join a cohort of scholars from across the social sciences as well as from the humanities, the life sciences and the physical sciences. I know this intellectual diversity will strengthen my current work and set an agenda for what's to come.”
Reynolds received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Wellesley College and a master’s degree in social sciences from the University of Chicago. She began her stint at Cornell in June.