Edward D. Vargas

Edward D. Vargas is a nonresident fellow in the Governance Studies programs at Brookings. Vargas also serves as associate professor in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. He studies the effects of poverty and inequality on the quality of life, focusing specifically on health, immigration status, and social policy, and how these factors contribute to the well-being of vulnerable families. Vargas is also interested in the methodological issues involved in the quantitative study of race and ethnicity. To address these issues, Vargas has developed two programs of research: The first examines how anti-immigrant climate is impacting Latina/o health; the second examines methodological issues in the quantitative research on race and ethnicity among Latina/o populations. Additionally, Vargas currently serves as a co-PI on the 2016 and 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) funded by the National Science Foundation, as well as on the 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey. Currently, Vargas is funded by the Robert W. Johnson Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on work related to the collection of racial and ethnic data across federal agencies. He is also a faculty affiliate in the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. On top of his academic work, he is an appointed member of the City of Phoenix – Central City Village Planning Committee and volunteers as a coach in youth sports across the Phoenix valley.