Karen Woodrow-Lafield is a sociologist focusing on international migration, racial and ethnic relations, and demography.  She has many publications relating to the U.S. foreign-born population, legal and unauthorized immigration and emigration, immigrant incorporation and citizenship, consequences of immigration reform, and Mexico-U.S. migration patterns. 

 

She began her career as Statistician and Demographer on the Population Analysis Staff at the U.S. Census Bureau (1984-1992) where she held responsibilities for planning immigration and emigration supplements to Current Population Surveys and for research studies measuring the foreign-born population, legal immigration, unauthorized migration, and emigration.  Over 1995-1997, she was among ten American scholars appointed by the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform to collaborate with ten Mexican scholars on the Binational Study on Migration Between Mexico and the United States.  She was a tenured Associate Professor in Sociology at Mississippi State University in 1996-2002 after research appointments at the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, and the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis of SUNY-Albany, and adjunct teaching at Ramapo College of New Jersey.  With a two year appointment as visiting faculty at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, she was Director of Border and Inter-American Affairs.  At MSU, she taught graduate seminars in population, development, and immigration, and graduate/undergraduate courses in population problems and processes and poverty analysis, in addition to directing doctoral dissertations.  At Notre Dame, she initiated migration, race, and ethnicity courses in the Latino Studies program. 

 

She is currently a Research Professor in the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland College Park. She is continuing research in this position, and recently as an independent scholar, on immigration, naturalization, emigration, and census issues.  In this transition period, she has been invited for faculty presentations in California, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and New York, and professional conferences.  These include:

 

  • “Transitions for Immigrants: Empirical Evidence and Future Considerations” (School of Social Work and Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, March 17, 2009)
  • “Interstate Migration and the Transition to Citizen” (annual meeting of the Population Association of America, New Orleans, April 19, 2008)
  • “Dimensions of Net Unauthorized Migration over Three Decades” (annual meeting of the Population Association of America, New Orleans, April 17, 2008, and College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, University of California, Riverside, March 12, 2007)
  • “A 21st Century Agenda on Migration, Populations, and Border Affairs” (School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Northwest, May 15, 2007)
  • “Immigration, Citizenship, and Immigrant Families:  Research Issues in Policy Contexts” (Department of Sociology, California State University San Bernardino, March 5, 2007)
  • “Immigration Multipliers” (Congress & Tomorrow’s Foreign-Born Workforce:  Evaluating Immigration Projections, Workshop, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University, September 26-27, 2006) 
  • “New Citizens and Internal Migration” (annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Los Angeles, March 30, 2006) 
  • “The Timing of Naturalization:  Immigrants from Selected Major Countries of Birth” (Public Policy Institute of California, February 28, 2006)
  • “Answering the Question:  How Many Unauthorized Migrants?”  (Department of Justice, Law, and Society, School of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, D.C., July 6, 2005, and the College of Natural and Behavioral Sciences, California State University, Dominguez Hills, November 16, 2005, and a similar presentation to the Department of Sociology, California State University, San Bernardino, March 5, 2007) 
  • “Modeling the Transition to U.S. Citizenship: Mexican and Dominican Immigrants” (Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Fordham University, January 28, 2005)
  • “Immigrant Families in Poverty: Investigation and Paradox” (annual meeting of the Southern Demographic Association, Hilton Head, October 15, 2004)
  • “Migration, Status, and the Foreign-Born Population” (Invited paper for the 4th Colorado Conference on the Estimation of Migration, convened at the Aspen Lodge, Estes Park, Colorado, September 24-26, 2004; similar presentation at the Institute for Regional Analysis and Public Policy, Morehead State University, April 27, 2005) 
  • “Modeling the Transition to U.S. Citizenship: Mexican and Dominican Immigrants” (Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Central Florida, April 12, 2004)
  • “Points of Departure: Emigration from the United States” (annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Boston, April 2, 2004, with Ellen Percy Kraly)
  • “The Demography of Migration from Colombia” (Seminar on the Demography of Conflict and Violence, Oslo, Norway, November 8-11, 2003, organized by the IUSSP Working Group on the Demography of Conflict and Violence, with Alma Garcia and Anand Ramanujan)
  • “A Snapshot on Census 2000 Coverage:  Answers, Questions, and Geography” (annual meeting of the Southern Demographic Association, October 24, 2003, Alexandria, Virginia, with Anand Ramanujan)
  • “A 21st Century Agenda on Border and Inter-American Affairs” (Institute for Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame, April 24 and July 8, 2003) 

 

Her research agenda covers five major areas:  migrant transitions among legal statuses and citizenship, socioeconomic wellbeing for immigrant families, the quantity and characteristics of U.S. immigration (unauthorized, lawful, temporary, and permanent), studying minority communities, and interrelations among individuals and institutions with current national security.  Her research activities as a demographer and sociologist specializing in immigration studies are oriented toward seeking funding from federal sources and foundations, including:

  • continuing the NICHD-funded research project on modeling immigrant naturalization;
  • establishing broader researcher data access for immigration research, specifically, establishing an immigration-to-naturalization data archive;
  • initiating data collection and modeling emigration and family networks for U.S. immigrants from the United States;
  • modeling poverty measurement for immigrant families
  • assessing sources of U.S. unauthorized migration .