Ilana Horwitz

Dr. Ilana M. Horwitz is an assistant professor of Jewish studies and sociology, and the Fields-Rayant Chair of Contemporary Jewish Life at the Stuart and Suzanne Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience at Tulane University.
Ilana is the author of God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion’s Surprising Impact on Academic Success, published by Oxford University Press in 2022. Her second book, The Entrepreneurial Scholar, is forthcoming with Princeton University Press later this year. Her third book, The Broken Ladder: Why 2/3 of Americans Don’t Complete College—And Why It’s Not Their Fault, is under contract with University of California Press.
Her scholarship has also appeared in the American Sociological Review, Social Science Research, Contemporary Jewry, Review of Religious Research, and the Journal of Jewish Education. Her public opinion pieces have appeared in outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Conversation, Inside Higher Education and Religion News Service.
Ilana teaches students to see the world through a sociological lens so they can recognize how issues of religion, social class, race, ethnicity and gender shape Jews and non-Jews in the United States. At Tulane, she teaches the popular service-learning course about “Jewish Leadership,” along with a course on “The Sociology of American Jews,” and a course on “Race, Class and American Jews.”
Currently, Ilana is working on a research project to illuminate the under-discussed topic of class dynamics within American Jewish communities, where socio-economic disparities often go unnoticed. In 2021, she conducted a study spotlighting economic challenges faced by low-income Jewish parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation awarded her a $325K grant to lead a national study on economic precarity among American Jews. This study involves surveying 2,000 U.S. Jews, along with 150 in-depth interviews, and aims to reshape national Jewish discussions by highlighting socio-economic concerns.
Ilana earned her PhD in sociology of education & Jewish Studies from Stanford University. She earned a master’s in international education development from Columbia University’s Teachers College, and a bachelor’s in business administration from Emory University. She is a former Institute for Education Sciences fellow and Wexner/Davidson fellow (a Jewish Leadership initiative) and worked for several years as a management consultant and program evaluator at organizations like Deloitte Consulting and Stanford University. In 2022, Ilana received the Distinguished Early Career Award from the Association for the Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ).