Bruce Western is professor of sociology at Harvard University and director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government. Previously, he was professor of sociology at Princeton University and faculty associate in the Office of Population Research. His research interests broadly include political and comparative sociology, stratification and inequality, and methodology. More specifically, he has studied how institutions shape labor market outcomes. Work in this area has developed along two tracks: the growth and decline of labor unions and their economic effects in the United States and Europe; and the impact of the American penal system on labor market inequality. His methodological work has focused on the application of Bayesian statistics to research problems in sociology. He is the author of Punishment and Inequality in America and, with Mary Patillo and David Weiman, of Imprisoning America: The Social Effects of Mass Incarceration, both publications of the Russell Sage Foundation. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.