Sheldon Danziger, the Henry J. Meyer Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at the Ford School and President Emeritus of the Russell Sage Foundation, has been elected president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS). Founded in 1889, AAPSS is a non-profit organization that promotes the use of social science research to inform public policy, publishes the Annals of the AAPSS, selects Fellows, and awards the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize.
Danziger becomes the 14th president in the organization’s history. In this role, he plans to emphasize the importance of social science research for addressing society’s most pressing challenges.
At the Ford School, Danziger directed the National Poverty Center and founded the Research and Training Program on Poverty and Public Policy, a mentorship initiative supporting emerging scholars from groups underrepresented in the social sciences. “In the current environment, educating the next generation of policy researchers and practitioners is critically important,” Danziger said.
“Unfortunately for the AAPSS and public policy faculty everywhere, policymakers don’t seem interested in evidence-based public policies. Instead, they often neglect scientific evidence and cite disinformation–-whether about climate change, the effects of vaccines, or the costs and benefits of Medicaid, or child tax credits,” he said.
Quoting former Senator Daniel Moynihan, Danziger said, “‘Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.’” Danziger continued, "Today, we seem to be in a world where everyone thinks they can make up the facts and make policy based on those.”
As a policy researcher, Danziger has dedicated his career to studying effects of economic and policy changes on trends in poverty and inequality.
“I came online in the 1970s as evidence-based public policies were becoming possible because computer capacity expanded,” he said. “New methods were developed; new data sets became available. With each improvement in research methods, computer technology and data, evidence-based public policy grew.”
However, Danziger noted that recently policymakers have ignored research. “Faculty are still conducting studies, and sometimes they influence public policy,” he said. For example, the Biden Administration used evidence when it increased income tax credits that reduced child poverty. But when Republicans took control of Congress after the 2022 midterm elections, those tax credits ended, and child poverty went back up. “That’s evidence-based policy too,” he explained.
Danziger sees AAPSS as helping to elevate the visibility of social science research. “I always thought academics were involved in a long game, I just didn’t know how long that game had to be,” he remarked.
Earlier this year, Ford School Dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes was named the AAPSS 2025 Sara McLanahan Fellow. In 2022, Earl Lewis, founding director of the University of Michigan Center for Social Solutions, was named the AAPSS Walter Lippmann Fellow. And in 2010, Danziger was named the John Kenneth Galbraith Fellow. Former Ford School Dean Rebecca Blank was named the Eleanor Roosevelt fellow and in 2015 was the winner of the Moynihan Prize.
By Sheri Hall
