Rice University sociologist Corey Abramson awarded Stanford fellowship to bridge AI and health inequality research

Corey Abramson will bridge AI and sociology at Stanford to study how social inequality shapes health, focusing on his new book Unequal Anatomies.

By: AXL Media

Published: Mar 21, 2026, 5:36 AM EDT

Source: Information for this report was sourced from Rice University

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Social and Physical Health

The transition from social opportunity to medical diagnosis is often a quiet process structured by neighborhoods, workplaces, and public policy. Corey Abramson, an associate professor of sociology at Rice University, has spent over twenty years documenting this intersection through in-depth observations in cancer clinics, dementia care facilities, and urban environments. By combining this qualitative fieldwork with advanced computational analysis, Abramson seeks to illuminate how American society and human health deeply influence one another, a research philosophy that has earned him a prestigious residency at Stanford University.

The Prestigious Legacy of the CASBS Fellowship

For over seven decades, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford has served as a crucible for scholars whose ideas reshape national policy and academic disciplines. Abramson is the first residential fellow selected from the Rice University faculty in the program’s modern era, marking a significant milestone for the institution’s sociology department. The fellowship provides a rare opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange, allowing Abramson to collaborate with a cohort of scholars from diverse fields to refine his data-driven approach to social science.

Mapping Inequality Through Unequal Anatomies

During his residency, Abramson will focus on completing his forthcoming book, "Unequal Anatomies," to be published by Oxford University Press. The project draws on hundreds of interviews and extensive quantitative data to demonstrate how life chances and health outcomes compound throughout a person's lifespan. By integrating large scale computational tools with qualitative research, the book aims to show the specific mechanisms through which systemic inequality manifests in the human body, providing a data-rich look at the long-term physical costs of social disparity.