Many of Cornell Sociology’s faculty and graduate students are applying their expertise in social processes to understand some of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in the process, help inform policy efforts to mitigate its spread and its deleterious effects.

A new paper by sociologists Kim Weeden and Benjamin Cornwell, from the Department of Sociology and the Center for the Study of Inequality, suggests that high levels of student interconnectedness should give university officials pause when it comes to resuming in-person instruction.

Although studies have shown that women are more likely than men to enter and complete college in U.S. higher education, women are less likely to earn degrees in science, technology, engineering and math fields.