Rachel Gordon, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Research and Administration

Dr. Rachel Gordon is associate dean for research and administration and professor of health studies (with tenure) in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Northern Illinois University. Prior to joining NIU, Dr. Gordon spent over two decades at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where she was a tenured professor of sociology and served as chair of social science research, as well as chair of the executive committee in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and was associate director for the social sciences at the Institute for Health Research and Policy. She was also a tenured professor, associate director and senior scholar at the University of Illinois System’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs, where she chaired the System-Wide Working Group on Education and Learning. Dr. Gordon additionally spent the 2021-2022 academic year as director of the Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning, Loyd Rockhold Endowed Chair in Child Development, and a professor of sociology (with tenure) at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Awards

In 2018, Dr. Gordon was awarded one of UIC’s top honors, as Distinguished Researcher of the Year for the Social Sciences. For her dissertation work at the University of Chicago, Dr. Gordon received a Frontiers of Research on Children, Youth and Families Young Scholar Award in 1998 from the Board on Children, Youth and Families of the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. As an undergraduate student, Dr. Gordon was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Senior Thesis Research Prize and was the College of Liberal Arts Student Marshal and Valedictorian at Penn State University (main University Park campus). Dr. Gordon has led numerous grants funded from federal agencies (NIH, NSF, IES).

Research

Drawing on multiple disciplines and methods, Gordon’s research broadly examines contextual, social and policy factors that nurture and constrain children’s development. She has studied early child care and education, parental employment, multigenerational families, neighborhood dynamics, youth peer groups and appearance-related identity cues. Her most recent intellectual pursuits aim to advance understanding regarding the cost, quality, adaptability and ownership of educational products whose creation and use are publicly funded, as well as, the ways in which snap judgments of appearance shape social constructions, identities and experiences.

Publications

Dr. Gordon’s bridging of multiple disciplines is reflected in her work being published in a wide breadth of leading academic journals including AERA Open, American Journal of Evaluation, Child Development, Criminology, Demography, Developmental Psychology, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Journal of Educational Policy, Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Adolescent Research, Journal of Research on Adolescence and Social Psychology Quarterly. Her article on The Child and Adult Care Food Program: Who is Served and Why? (with Robert Kaestner, Sanders Korenman and Kristin Abner) won the Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize for the best article published in Social Service Review in 2011. Dr. Gordon was co-chair of the 2020 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence and chair of the science policy subcommittee of the Society for Research in Child Development from 2018-2021. She is a member of the NICHD Health, Behavior and Context Study Section and on the editorial board of Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

Throughout her career, Dr. Gordon has worked at the intersection of academic research and social policy, including by directing the Illinois Family Impact Seminars for a decade and launching the Illinois chapter of NEW Leadership with the Conference of Women Legislators of the Illinois General Assembly. With Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Dr. Gordon created the Careers in Child and Family Policy guidebooks and websites that supported developmental scientists pursuing policy training and positions throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Education

• Ph.D., Public Policy, University of Chicago
• M.P.P., Public Policy, University of Chicago
• B.S., Psychology, Pennsylvania State University