Professor Adina D. Sterling graduated with honors from Ohio State University with a BS in chemical engineering in 2002 and graduated with her PhD from Emory in Organization and Management in 2011. She is an economic sociologist who specializes in studying the way firms and labor and product markets interact and the implications of these interactions on the prices firms get for their products, who gets hired and what they get paid, as well as the affects this has on social stratification. For instance, her work has investigated a) how initial networks evolve in organizations b) how hiring practices affect selection and wage decisions and c) how networks and prior employment affect the success of entrepreneurs.

Professor Sterling currently has projects investigating how traditional methods of hiring compare to trial employment, or when firms get the opportunity to observe individuals first-hand in organizations, such as internships prior to making hiring decisions. Her work has appeared in journals such as Management Science, Organization Science, Industrial Labor Relations Review, and the Annals of the Academy of Management. Prior to academia, Professor Sterling worked at Procter and Gamble as a senior engineer on brands such as Pampers and Oil of Olay.