Biography

Van C. Tran is an Associate Professor of Sociology and International Migration Studies at the City University of New York Graduate School and University Center. His main research areas are race, ethnicity, immigration, inequality, and urban poverty.

As an immigration scholar and urban sociologist, his research and teaching embrace New York City and its diverse neighborhoods as a social laboratory for innovative research to inform urban social policy. His research focuses on four major themes: second-generation mobility and integration, intergroup relations and racial attitudes, Asian American diversity and growth, and incarceration and re-entry. His research has appeared in both general and leading journals within the field of immigration, including The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Social Forces, International Migration Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, City & Community, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Sociological Science. Tran has received research support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Andrew Mellon Foundation, National Science Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Trinity Church Wall Street Foundation.

Tran has served on the editorial boards for American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, The Sociological Quarterly, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. He has been an ad-hoc reviewer for fellowship applications, grant proposals, university presses, and thirty-two academic journals in five disciplines—sociology, demography, political science, public health, and epidemiology.

Tran is the faculty co-director for the BRES Collaboration Hub, a multidisciplinary initiative at the CUNY Graduate Center funded by the Mellon Foundation to transform ethnic studies across CUNY. He is also a faculty advisor for China at CUNY, a multidisciplinary initiative funded by the Luce Foundation to promote the integration of China study into the university curriculum.

Tran has won wide recognition for his teaching and mentoring at Columbia, including the GSAS Faculty Mentoring Award and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching —the highest university-wide teaching honor. He also received the Malkiel Scholar Award from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation for research excellence and commitment to creating inclusive communities. He has worked with and advised students from diverse backgrounds on a wide range of research topics.

Tran is engaged with the public. His op-eds have been published in the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He has been cited or quoted in major news outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, NPR, NBC, and NY1.

Tran joined the faculty of the City University of New York Graduate School and University Center in 2019. He taught at Columbia University and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Sholar at the University of Pennsylvania. Tran received his A.A. in Liberal Arts from Hostos Community College, B.A. in Sociology from Hunter College, and Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard.