Abramson Pioneers Breakthrough Research Bridging Health, Inequality, and AI

Health care happens in clinics and hospitals. But health itself is shaped long before a diagnosis, in neighborhoods, families, workplaces and policies that quietly structure opportunity.

For Corey Abramson, associate professor of sociology at Rice University, understanding that connection requires both deep fieldwork and advanced computation. His research combines two decades of in-depth observation in cancer clinics, dementia care facilities, hospitals and urban neighborhoods with large-scale computational analysis to examine how health and American society shape one another.

That work has earned Abramson a year in residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University, a fellowship that for more than 70 years has brought together scholars whose ideas have reshaped disciplines and informed national policy. 

“CASBS has shaped some of the most important scholarship in the social and behavioral sciences over the past 70 years, and being named a fellow is a real honor,” Abramson said. “The fellowship lets me continue my work in a cohort of scholars from across disciplines.”

During the 2026-27 academic year, Abramson will focus on completing “Unequal Anatomies” with Oxford University Press. The book draws on fieldwork, quantitative data and hundreds of in-depth interviews to show how health and life chances shape one another and how those processes compound throughout life. The project integrates large-scale computational tools with qualitative research to illuminate how inequality becomes embodied over time.

The fellowship will also provide dedicated time to refine scientific machine learning and artificial intelligence-based methods for qualitative health research. Abramson’s group began developing these approaches before the recent surge in widely accessible generative AI tools, positioning it at the forefront of conversations about how AI can be responsibly integrated into social science.

“My research examines how health and American society are deeply interconnected, combining large-scale computational analysis with in-depth field observation and using each to check and extend the other,” Abramson said. “Having the time and space to integrate all of that means a lot.”

Abramson said the interdisciplinary structure of the fellowship aligns closely with his own research philosophy.

“One thing I’ve tried to do throughout my career is seek wide feedback beyond my discipline, from clinicians and computer scientists to patients and policymakers,” he said. “CASBS is built around exactly that kind of exchange. I expect the conversations to advance my research in ways I cannot fully anticipate.”

At Rice, Abramson co-directs the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society and leads the Computational Ethnography Lab, mentoring students working at the intersection of qualitative research, computation and public policy. The fellowship expands opportunities for student collaborators and for carrying research participants’ experiences into policy conversations.

Based on publicly available fellowship records, Abramson is the first residential fellow selected while holding a faculty appointment at Rice in the program’s modern (post-2007) era.

“It’s a real privilege,” he said. “I see it as a reflection of Rice’s investment in rigorous social science and the support I’ve received since joining the university. It’s also an opportunity to represent Rice in a community where sustained, collaborative scholarship matters.”

For Rice and for Houston, where questions of aging, dementia care and health inequality are increasingly urgent, the fellowship reflects continued momentum in research that bridges computation and lived experience, ensuring technological innovation remains grounded in human realities.