Wendy Espeland is Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. She works in the areas of organizations, culture, politics, social theory, and science studies, with an emphasis on how social processes of quantification shape organizational decision-making, cultures, technology, and politics in a variety of institutional contexts.
Her books include The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality, and Identity in the American Southwest and (with Michael Sauder) Engines of Anxiety: Academic Rankings, Reputation and Accountability.
Her work has been supported by the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, as well as other institutions. Her research has appeared in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Law and Society Review, European Journal of Sociology, and the American Sociological Review.