Sophia Scaglioni joined MIT economics as an Altman Research Fellow in 2024, after receiving her BA in Economics and Political Science from Boston University and working as a researcher in the nonprofit sector. Here, Scaglioni shares more about her research interests, her experience as an inaugural member of the department’s predoctoral fellowship program, and where she hopes to go next.
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Q: What drew you to the study of economics?
A: I once heard that economics is a way to mathematize arguments about how society ought to function, and I’ve always quite liked that quip and the truth behind it. I think economics is a beautiful and fascinating way to systematize the world around us and use those systems to think up possible solutions to nuanced social problems.
I was wowed when I encountered the very creative work happening in labor and political economy as an undergraduate, especially applied work that grappled with big questions like why highly-educated women drop out of the labor force after having kids, and empirical evidence on the degree to which having a politician in your family affects your likelihood of becoming an elected official. Economics can tackle these and other super interesting questions about career progression, gender gaps, and who gets to rise to the top of American society so thoughtfully. I really love the idea of having a career that allows me to think about important and timely questions and devise ways to answer them mathematically.Â
Q: What areas of economics are you most interested in studying?
A: I am most interested in labor economics. My background is in policy and political science, so I’m also interested in political economy, especially where it intersects with labor.
Within labor, I’m drawn to applied microeconomics topics, specifically around gender and class gaps in career progression, and behavioral topics like biased beliefs about job searches and information frictions in the labor market. Nina Roussille is one of my incredible PIs and mentors at MIT, and working with her has really solidified these interests. Nina is one of the most impactful young labor economists working today, and her research agenda is at the frontier of exploring gender gaps in labor market outcomes, as well as how the information available to candidates impacts job searches and labor market inequality.
Q: What makes economics a particularly useful or interesting lens for exploring these topics?
A: I feel lucky to have worked closely with statisticians, political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists in past roles, and I firmly believe that other disciplines can answer questions thoughtfully in their own way. However, I think economics serves as a kind of intellectual crossroads: borrowing insights from across the social sciences while applying the methodological rigor of empirical analysis to complex, real-world problems.
What excites me most is how economics increasingly engages with ideas from disciplines like sociology and psychology, particularly as we confront questions of mutual interest or that demand new conceptual frameworks. This openness, coupled with the discipline’s commitment to rigorous analysis, I think positions economics to illuminate social challenges in novel and powerful ways. That is a reflection, to me at least, of the best spirit of academic inquiry.
Q: Have your interests shifted over the course of your work as a predoctoral researcher?
A: My interests haven't shifted, exactly, but I think they have crystalized and become more precise. I came to MIT knowing that I was interested in questions around power and agency in career decisions, such as how class and gender background affect who opts into high power and high visibility careers. I am still interested in those topics, but my interests feel much more focused. I am constantly pushed to think about research in a much more rigorous way—to go beyond a surface-level correlation and pinpoint causal mechanisms, rather than just observing an overall trend.
My other PI at MIT is Sloan professor Anna Stansbury, who is also at the forefront of research in labor economics and is truly one of the most brilliant people I know. She has been an incredible example as I develop a more rigorous approach and always takes the time to really help me understand this element of being an economist. I am incredibly grateful for that.
Q: How did your academic studies prepare you for the work you’ve taken on at MIT?
A: I feel really lucky to have gotten a great undergraduate economics education at Boston University. I worked closely there with Max Palmer, a political scientist who also publishes in economics journals, and that gave me an early start on developing the technical skills in data science and coding that are required to become an economist today. I also got a sense at BU of what the publication and research processes look like, and that, along with a solid technical background and understanding of foundational economics, really set me up to succeed in my current position.
Q: Conversely, what are some things you’ve encountered as a predoc that your studies didn’t prepare you for? Are there lessons you feel you could only have learned through this hands-on experience?
A: I get to talk with Nina and Anna every week, and we're in constant communication as we work on our projects. Just being able to work so closely with such accomplished academics has come with a lot of lessons I really couldn't have learned otherwise. The standard of excellence they bring to the research process has really pushed me to become more detail oriented and make sure things are done perfectly, even when it takes more time. I think a core part of creating the highest-quality academic research is a kind of creative destruction—the willingness to discard an idea that you’ve worked on a lot if you get new data and it doesn’t make sense anymore. Or scrapping an entire set of graphs in order to focus on a new finding. It really requires a tireless dedication to iterating until something is as good as it can be. It’s a quality I’m definitely still developing, but one that the predoc experience is teaching me in a way I don’t think anything else could have.
Q: How has being a predoc at MIT compared to research positions you’ve held elsewhere?
A: I feel very inspired by the other economics predocs at MIT. I’ve been inspired by my peers in other research positions, whether as an undergraduate research assistant or in my role at YC Research (now OpenResearch), but there’s something unique about the fact that everyone here is going through a shared experience. We’re in this interim where we’re not students, but we’re embedded in academia, and many of us are in the process of making decisions about graduate school and the future. Because you and your peers are in the same phase of your careers and navigating the same processes, everyone is really in it together. It flips imposter syndrome on its head—everyone around me is so brilliant and talented and going through the same things I am, and if they can do it, I can too. It’s really uplifting.
Q: What are you hoping to do after your predoctoral fellowship?
A: My long run goal is to hold a professor position that allows me to teach while doing research that informs policy around topics that I’m passionate about, like gaps in educational attainment or pay inequality. I’d really like to continue on my academic journey by getting a PhD, and I’m planning to apply to economics programs this fall. I’m very excited about starting that process.
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