Malak Kalasho

Malak Kalasho is a joint PhD student in public policy and sociology and a Rackham Merit Fellow at the University of Michigan. She is broadly interested in the socioeconomic integration of immigrants and their descendants. She aims to examine how institutional, demographic, and social factors shape immigrants' assimilation and mobility.

Before beginning her doctoral studies, Malak was a pre-doctoral research associate on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research, where she continues to work as a research assistant. She earned her B.A. in public policy, with a minor in economics, from the University of Michigan in 2024. As an undergraduate, she held a range of social science and policy research assistantships and federal government internships. Originally from Iraq, Malak grew up in the Detroit Metropolitan area and has lived in Ann Arbor since her undergraduate years.