Aixa Cintrón-Vélez is Program Director at the Russell Sage Foundation. At RSF, she manages the scientific portfolio for the Future of Work program and for the Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration program. She has also directed Foundation initiatives on the Socioeconomic and Political Effects of the Implementation of the Affordable Care Act in the U.S.; Care Work; Immigration and Cultural Contact; Race and Policing; and the Causes and Consequences of Low Wage Work in Advanced Industrial Economies.
Before joining Russell Sage, she was a Research Associate at the Center for Hispanic Mental Health Research, and taught in the Graduate School of Social Service, at Fordham University. Prior to Fordham, she was a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she taught research methods and social policy. She has done research and written about urban and low-wage labor markets, and the family, employment and migration careers of Latinas in the United States.
Earlier in her career, she directed a vocational counseling and training program for low-income women at Casa Central, a large Hispanic social services agency in Chicago’s North side. She was an NIPC Fellow in Intergovernmental Affairs with the City of Chicago’s Department of Planning, and she was Program Officer for Education and Economic Development at the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation.
She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Welfare Policy from the University of Michigan, an A.M. in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Puerto Rico.