Chris Lewis & Adaner Usmani

Chris Lewis is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Law School. His research is about how the law (especially the criminal law) can be more fairly and efficiently administered in response to social and economic inequality in the United States.

Adaner Usmani is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies, effective July 1, 2019. His research is driven by two questions: Why do some people flourish while others suffer? And, what explains why, in some places but not others, movements or policies emerge to challenge or moderate this inequality? In one project, he explores when and why ordinary individuals manage to coordinate collective action, and how well these patterns explain the forward march of democracy and the extent of economic redistribution. In a different project, he studies the origins and consequences of American mass incarceration. Most of his work uses computational and quantitative methods, but he retains a keen interest in the comparative historical method, and in qualitative social science more generally.