THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Rebecca Sandefur, PhD’01, named MacArthur Fellow
More than two decades ago, Rebecca Sandefur stepped onto the UChicago campus for the first time as a graduate student, drawn by what she saw as a unique challenge.
Even on her school visit, she had sensed the University’s culture of serious intellectual inquiry, one she likened to “a rigorous, bare-knuckle brawl about ideas.” It felt like the perfect place for her to become a sociologist.
Although Sandefur, AM’97, PhD’01, hoped to study inequality in children’s schooling, a chance call from a UChicago professor turned her focus to the legal system. That switch eventually made her an expert on low-income access to civil justice—work that reentered the spotlight on Oct. 4, when she was one of 25 people awarded a prestigious MacArthur fellowship.