Lauren Rivera

Lauren Rivera is the Peter G. Peterson Professor of Corporate Ethics and Professor of Management & Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She also holds a courtesy appointment as a Professor of Sociology in Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences. Her research examines how definitions and evaluations of merit shape social inequalities, particularly in hiring and workplace settings.

Rivera is the author of the best-selling book Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs (Princeton University Press), which investigates recruitment and hiring practices in elite professional service firms. Her current research explores interventions to reduce workplace inequalities. Her work has been featured in major media outlets, including The Atlantic, The Economist, The Financial Times, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. She has received multiple awards from the American Sociological Association and was recognized by Poets & Quants and Thinkers50 as one of the world’s top business school professors.

Rivera has served on the editorial boards of the American Sociological Review, Sociological Theory, and the Princeton University Press Series in Cultural Sociology. She is also a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Chicago’s Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility and a Faculty Associate at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research.

She received her BA in sociology and psychology from Yale University and her PhD in sociology from Harvard University. Before entering academia, she worked at Evite.com, Leo Burnett Hispanic, and as a consultant at Monitor Group London.