Allison J. Pugh, PhD

Allison Pugh is Research Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. Her fourth book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton 2024) analyzes work that relies on relationship, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Science, and named on “best of” lists by Nature, Public Books, and the New Scientist. Pugh’s research and teaching focus on how people forge connections and find meaning and dignity at home and at work, and how their efforts are shaped by powerful economic factors such as consumer culture, job insecurity, and automation. She has given more than 100 invited talks, and her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 2024-5 Vice President of the American Sociological Association, Pugh has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Berggruen Institute, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a visiting scholar in Germany, France and Australia. Pugh is also a former journalist dedicated to public sociology and published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time and other outlets.