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Maxwell sociologist has been named a 2026-27 visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in support of her research into how court-supervised programs, such as mandated treatment and electronic monitoring, shape the lives of the people assigned to them.

Kirk-Werner is one of 19 selected for the program, one of nation’s most selective social science fellowships. With collaborator Mary Ellen Stitt of Rutgers University, she will use the spring 2027 residency to write a book manuscript that reveals their findings on the alternative programs courts use to supervise people in lieu of or alongside incarceration. These programs include community service, electronic monitoring and mandated treatment for mental and behavioral health as well as substance use.

Drawing on interviews, ethnographic fieldwork and administrative records, the two researchers aim to document what these programs look like day-to-day for affected individuals. Kirk-Werner says their work challenges a widespread assumption that these alternatives represent a simple departure from punishment, revealing instead a court landscape that looks quite different from the one portrayed in most news coverage and academic research.

“Professor Kirk-Werner is at the forefront of scholars studying how everyday citizens interact with the legal system in the United States,” says , associate dean for research and Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking at the Maxwell School. “This visiting fellowship is a recognition of that work and a launchpad for future work and collaboration.”

Kirk-Werner is an assistant professor of sociology at Maxwell and a senior research associate for the Center for Policy Research. Her work focuses on the intersection of law, economics and power—specifically, how financial incentives and institutional pressures drive decision-making within the U.S. legal system and how those dynamics produce or entrench inequality.

She also is a principal investigator of the Captive Money Lab, a public-facing research lab supported with a $1.5 million grant from Arnold Ventures that is currently examining the use of prison pay-to-stay statutes that leave millions of incarcerated individuals subject to the partial or total cost of their imprisonment.

Kirk-Werner’s work has been published in journals such as Social Problems, American Journal of Sociology, Sociological Forum, Sociological Perspectives and Punishment & Society. In addition to the Russell Sage Foundation and Arnold Ventures, her research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council and the American Society of Criminology’s Ruth D. Peterson Fellowship for Racial and Ethnic Diversity.

Founded in 1907 by Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, the Russell Sage Foundation is one of the nation’s oldest philanthropic organizations dedicated to strengthening social science research and improving public policy. It works to support innovative research that diagnoses social problems and advances evidence-based solutions. Through its visiting scholar program, it brings researchers from institutions across the country to its New York City headquarters to collaborate and advance their work.

Kirk-Werner says the fellowship’s structure—which places scholars together in shared space for the year—is a central part of its appeal.

“This fellowship is all about being in community with the other invited scholars—working, eating and living alongside each other,” she says. “I am honored and excited to be a part of this community and looking forward to the dedicated time for writing and working with my collaborator, Dr. Stitt.”

—Story by Jacob Spudich