Nina Bandelj is a sociologist, author and professor who studies money, and how culture, power and emotions influence the economy. 

NEW BOOK: OVERINVESTED: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting (Princeton University Press) coming January 20, 2026, on how we turned children into investment projects and parenting into exhausting work — and why that’s a bad idea.

BIOGRAPHY: Nina Bandelj is Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Growing up in Eastern Europe as it transformed rapidly after the fall of the Berlin Wall inspires Bandelj to connect people’s emotions, beliefs and struggles with transformations of social and economic systems. She has written numerous articles and chapters on how social forces impact economic lives and is an author, co-author, editor or co-editor of seven books. She is an elected member of the honorary Sociological Research Association and has received fellowships from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, the European University Institute in Florence, and the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Bandelj is a recipient of the Dynamic Women Academic Achievement Award, the Senate Distinguished Mid-Career Service Award and the Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award from the University of California, Irvine. She was Vice President of the American Sociological Association  (2021-22) and President of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (2023-24). She served as inaugural associate vice provost for faculty development at UC Irvine (2019-24) and as longtime and first woman editor of Socio-Economic Review (2011-22).

CONTACT: Email at nbandelj-at-uci-dot-edu