Cornell University ILR School

Congratulations to Jonathan Lam, ILR Class of 2027, who recently became the youngest board member of Amnesty International USA.

Lam becomes the first person to hold the organization’s youth board seat, reserved for individuals ages 18–24. He was also earlier named the inaugural recipient of their Trailblazer in Organizing and Activism Award in 2025.

Read more: https://www.un.org/en/peace-and-security/hear-us/my-peace/the-war-we-inherited-the-sanctuary-we-build

Photo: Amnesty International USA

We can’t wait to welcome new students to the ILR School and Cornell campus next week! 👋 Wherever you’re coming from, we hope you enjoy your journey to Ithaca.

Congratulations to Y. Samuel Wang, assistant professor of statistics and data science at the ILR School, who is one of 13 professors from Cornell to have received National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Faculty Early Career Development Awards! 👏

Wang will use the award to develop theory and methods that broaden the empirical use of causal discovery, a subfield of statistics and machine learning that seeks to recover possible causal relationships among variables in a complex system.

Read more: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/07/thirteen-early-career-professors-win-nsf-development-awards?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=research

The ILR School joins the labor relations community in mourning the passing of Robert B. McKersie, dean of the ILR School from 1971-1979.

McKersie, a distinguished scholar, educator, author, mentor and one of the most influential voices in industrial and labor relations, died July 11 at his home in Arlington, Massachusetts, at the age of 96.

“Bob led a remarkable life,” said Harry Katz, the Jack Sheinkman Professor of Collective Bargaining at ILR. “Not only did he make immense contributions to the fields of industrial relations and conflict resolution, but he also served as a mentor and caring friend to so many. It was a privilege to get to know him personally and professionally.”

A memorial service celebrating McKersie’s life will be held Aug. 4 at 2 p.m. at First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Read more about McKersie's lasting impact: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/07/bob-mckersie-former-ilr-dean-dies-96

In the largest one-time gift commitment in the history of the ILR School, Ed Baum ’81 and his wife, Holly Wallace, have made a foundational gift of $10 million to establish The Baum and Wallace Family High Road Endowment.

This gift will fund stipends, subsidize housing and provide robust program support for the High Road NYC program, which provides students with engaged-learning and leadership opportunities. 🗽

“This wonderfully generous gift will enrich the educational experience of generations of students to come,” said Alexander Colvin, Ph.D. ’99, the Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean and Martin F. Scheinman ’75, M.S. ’76, Professor of Conflict Resolution. “I deeply appreciate the partnership of Ed Baum and Holly Wallace in helping position ILR as a leader in engaged learning.” 🤝

Read more: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/07/historic-gift-ilr-will-endow-engaged-learning-initiative?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=alumni&utm_content=linked_text

How do you study salary ranges and other employee statistics when private companies are tight-lipped about this information?

Whitney Kramer, interim head of Research & Learning Services for Cornell University Library's Olin and Uris Libraries, is helping Cornell students gather, find, and interpret real-world datasets using publicly available government data.

Learn how this collaboration with the ILR School is helping students build data literacy skills for the workplace.

📖 Read the full story: https://www.library.cornell.edu/about/news/gathering-real-world-data-for-the-classroom/

📕 If you haven't stopped by Catherwood Library in a minute, here are a few photos of the current Catherwood Library/Kheel Center staff picks display!

This selection of books was debuted during Reunion week, and guests are invited to flip through the 1971-85 ILR Alumni Directory, The ILR School at Fifty or any other titles that catch your eye. 📖

Check the Catherwood Library website for summer library hours!

Generous funding by an anonymous alumnus has accelerated the ILR School’s research on one of the biggest questions facing society: the future of work.

“The ability to bring in postdocs [through the Future of Work Fellowship] is incredibly valued. They help run our labs; they really keep our experimental research going. Postdocs come in having five or six years of research training under their belts, so they can hit the ground running and make a big impact in the couple of years they’re here,” said Vanessa Bohns, the Braunstein Family Professor and Chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior.

From conducting research on how to improve job search platforms, to research about the intersection of immigration enforcement and workers’ rights—and more—read about the prescient projects that ILR's Future of Work fellows have been working on: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/alumni/alumni-stories/generosity-helps-fuel-applied-research?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_feed&utm_campaign=alumni

When Chris Bordoni ’07 was diagnosed with late-stage cancer at thirty years old, he decided to use this crisis to transform his life.

In this thought-provoking talk for TEDxCornell, the ILR School alum—now an Associate Teaching Professor of Strategy & Business Economics at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business—explores how adversity can disrupt old ways of thinking and open the door to personal growth, innovation and reinvention.

Stop Wasting (Good) Crises | Chris Bordoni | TEDxCornell When Chris Bordoni was diagnosed with late-stage cancer at thirty y...