Emma Romell

Emma Romell is a sociologist and demographer with wide ranging interests in inequality. She completed the Sociology PhD program at University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a trainee with the Center for Demography and Ecology. Her research spans topics including family structure and family relationships, health disparities, and education. She engages questions in these areas from a feminist perspective. Her most recent paper on family composition and parent-teacher relationships is forthcoming in Social Problems, and her work on expert involvement in the abortion policy making process has been published in Contraception. She is also interested in cross-national work and was a visiting scholar at the French Institute for Demographic Studies (Ined) in 2023.

After graduating in 2025, Emma joined the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at Oxford University as a postdoctoral researcher in reproductive demography.

In the Reproductive Equity Action Lab (REAL), Emma supports research on abortion laws and their impacts on marginalized groups, specifically mandatory counseling and waiting periods, which are one of the most common ways that states have restricted abortion access. She is also leading a paper that develops a novel indicator of racial inequality in bankruptcy outcomes and tests its relationship with Black-White infant health disparities.

What do you collect? 
Matchbooks from bars and hotels.

What is your favorite thing to nerd out about?
The Lord of the Rings (the books AND the movies).

What is your favorite outdoor activity? 
Camping and hiking.