Industrial and Labor Relations

Field Description

Cornell offers four graduate degree programs in the field of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR): MILR (Master of Industrial and Labor Relations); the MS and PhD; and the MPS (Master of Professional Studies), which includes the EMHRM (Executive Master of Human Resource Management) program and the MPS Ithaca program.

The MILR
Choose one of the following areas of concentration: human resources and organizations; collective representation; dispute resolution; or international and comparative labor

Students complete a minimum of 16 courses and 48 credits in courses, including required courses in labor relations, organizational behavior, labor economics, labor and employment law, human resource management, and statistics. Candidates with a JD or MBA. degree from a U.S. institution may be able to obtain the MILR degree in one year. Students also have the option to apply for a five-semester, dual-degree program at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (MILR) and the Johnson Graduate School of Management (MBA)

MS/PhD
Students specialize in one of four areas: human resource studies; international and comparative labor; labor relations, law and history; or organization behavior. They also minor in any of the above areas, as well as in statistics and data science or labor economics. The MS/PhD program typically takes 4-5 years to complete.

Executive Master of Human Resource Management (EMHRM)
Designed for HR professionals with eight or more years of work experience who aspire to advance to progressively higher levels of executive HR leadership. In this 15-month program, students learn about the latest Human Resources research from leading academics and interact with senior HR leaders from multiple industries. The EMHRM experience builds understanding of the essential links between business strategy and workforce strategy and teaches advanced skills in organizational design, talent development, change leadership, and other core elements of HR excellence. The EMHRM program leads to a Master of Professional Studies (MPS) degree.

MPS Ithaca

This degree is limited to individuals with professionally related work experience who wish to update their knowledge of current practices. Applicants for this degree are limited to those sponsored by their organization.

Contact Information

Website: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/programs/graduate-degree-programs
Email: ilrgradapplicant@cornell.edu
Phone: 607 255-1522

218 Ives Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853

Data and Statistics

Field Manual

Subject and Degrees

Human Resources (Executive Master of Human Resource Management)

Industrial and Labor Relations

Concentrations by Subject

Human Resources (Executive Master of Human Resource Management)

  • human resource management
  • labor relations, economics, and organizational behavior

Industrial and Labor Relations

  • human resource studies
  • international and comparative labor
  • labor economics (minor)
  • labor relations, law, and history
  • labor, research, and policy (M.S. only)
  • organizational behavior
  • statistics and data science (minor)

Faculty

Santiago Anria

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: research focuses on social movements and parties in Latin America and has appeared in journals and academic blogs.

Ariel C. Avgar

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: labor relations, law and history

Rosemary Batt

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies; international and comparative labor
  • Research Interests: human resource studies; international and comparative labor

Bradford S Bell

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies
  • Research Interests: human resource studies

Michele Belot

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor economics
  • Research Interests: Behavioral Economics, Labor Economics, Health Economics

Sarah Besky

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: Research uses ethnographic and historical methods to study the intersection of nature, labor and capitalism in South Asia

Dina Bishara

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor
  • Research Interests: Authoritarianism, social and protest movements, state-labor relations, and the mobilization of the unemployed

Francine D Blau

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor economics
  • Research Interests: labor economics; international and comparative labor

Justin Bloesch

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor economics
  • Research Interests: research focuses on labor economics, macroeconomics, and inequality.

Vanessa Kimberly Bohns

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: social influence; egocentrism; moral emotions; prosocial and antisocial behavior; interpersonal relations

Brittany Bond

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: Organizations, Labor Markets, Status, Evaluations, and Careers

George R Boyer

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor economics
  • Research Interests: labor economics; international and comparative labor

Mary Diane Burton

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies; organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: human resources

James T Carter

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: research focuses on understanding the current diversity landscape by examining which diversity efforts successfully improve outcomes and stakeholder perceptions.

Christopher J Collins

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies; organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: organizational behavior; human resources studies

Alexander J. Colvin

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: collective bargaining; labor history; labor law

Ileen A Devault

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: collective bargaining; labor law; labor history; international and comparative labor

Thomas J Diciccio

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor economics
  • Research Interests: economics and social statistics

Virginia L Doellgast

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor
  • Research Interests: international and comparative labor

Sean Fath

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: Social perception and inequality in organizations and society

Gary Sheldon Fields

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor economics
  • Research Interests: international and comparative labor; labor economics

Elias Friedman

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor
  • Research Interests: international and comparative labor

Candelaria Garay

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: research focuses on issues of labor and social policy in Latin America

Shannon Marie Gleeson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: low-wage workers, the role of immigrant documentation status, and legal mobilization; immigrant civic engagement and the bureaucratic processes of labor standards enforcement.

Michael Evan Gold

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: collective bargaining; labor law; labor history; dispute resolution

Kate Griffith

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests:

John P. Hausknecht

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies
  • Research Interests: human resources; motivation; organizations; staffing and selection; employee retention

Louis Hyman

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: labor relations, law, and history

Tristan Ivory

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor

George Hersch Jakubson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor economics
  • Research Interests: labor economics

Lawrence M Kahn

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor economics; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: labor economics; collective bargaining; labor law; labor history; international and comparative labor

Harry Charles Katz

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: collective bargaining; labor law; labor history; international and comparative labor; dispute resolution

Rebecca Kehoe

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies
  • Research Interests: Star performers, alignment of HR systems and business strategy, and process-based perspectives of HR system design and implementation.

JR Keller

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies

Philipp Kircher

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor economics
  • Research Interests: Consequences of search frictions in labor markets, in particular regarding wage setting and assignment of workers to jobs.

Alexander Kowalski

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies
  • Research Interests: Future of work, organization theory, organizational culture, management practices, employee voice, stratification and inequality, logistics and supply chains, field experiments, mixed methods

Sarosh C Kuruvilla

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: collective bargaining; labor law; labor history; international and comparative labor, dispute resolution

Desiree LeClercq

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: Relationship between international labor rights and broader international governance

Alice Lee

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: Social influence, negotiations and conflict management, power and status, cross-cultural dynamics

Risa L Lieberwitz

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: collective bargaining; labor law; labor history

Adam Seth Litwin

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: employee relations; health care industry; high performance work systems; industrial relations systems; labor and society; labor relations; unions; technology and work

Brian Lucas

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior

John E. McCarthy

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history

Courtney McCluney

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: Diversity, equity and inclusion in organizations

Tejasvi Nagaraja

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: How labor and working-class history intersects with African American and foreign relations history

Lisa H. Nishii

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies; international and comparative labor
  • Research Interests: human resource studies; international and comparative labor

Tae Youn Park

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies
  • Research Interests: Employment relationship;Compensation and rewards;Turnover and retention

Devon Proudfoot

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Human Resources (Executive Master of Human Resource Management): human resource management; Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies
  • Research Interests: stereotyping and inequality, creativity evaluation, motivational underpinnings of organizational attitudes and behaviors

Gali Racabi

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: Gali’s research focus on the legal foundations of workplace power. Current projects include writing on exclusions from work law; technological change and antidiscrimination law; platform work; and the burgeoning U.S. students’ worker movement.

Caitlin Ray

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: human resource studies
  • Research Interests: Human Capital Resources; Emergence; Social capital; Employee mobility; Fit; Research Methods

Evan Riehl

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor economics
  • Research Interests: Economic development; Economics of higher education; labor economics

Benjamin A Rissing

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior

Seth Sanders

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor economics
  • Research Interests: Labor economics and econometrics with a specialization in population research

Wesley D. Sine

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: organizational behavior

Robert Stewart Smith

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor economics
  • Research Interests: labor economics

Pamela S. Tolbert

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior
  • Research Interests: organizational behavior

Y. Samuel Wang

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: statistics and data science
  • Research Interests: I have broad interests across statistics, machine learning and data science, but much of my work is in the subfield of "graphical models." In this area, researchers consider how each variable in a complex system might be dependent or independent of the other variables. I primarily work in theory and methods, so I'm not tied to a specific application area. However, as examples, the methods I work on could be applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to discover how different regions of the brain interact, or to financial data to see how the performance of some stocks affect the performance of other stocks, or to systems biology data to see how certain proteins might regulate other proteins. I also enjoy thinking about statistics and data science applied to social science questions. For instance, one of my current projects seeks to measure gender bias in co-authorship team formation.

Martin Timothy Wells

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: statistics and data science
  • Research Interests: economic and social statistics

Eleanor Wilking

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: Tax law, employment law, and policy

Andrew B Wolf

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: international and comparative labor; labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: research interests center around how the labor movement and governments respond to emerging labor market forms, such as the gig economy

Duanyi Yang

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: How organizational human resource management policies operate within different institutional contexts and in the face of globalization, migration, and demographic shifts

Dana Yang

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: statistics and data science
  • Research Interests: The broad area of high-dimensional statistics and machine learning, including random network analysis, optimality analysis, Bayesian analysis, oracle inequalities, nonparametric estimation, convergence analysis for algorithms, rapidly mixing Markov chains, ethics and safety in machine learning.

Yiran Zhang

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: labor relations, law, and history
  • Research Interests: Professor Zhang is interested in the ways in which law and policies shape the power dynamics affecting paid and unpaid social reproductive labor, especially the labor that is traditionally associated with “women’s work.” She hopes to contribute to a better understanding of work-law-in-action from the perspectives of care workers and other marginalized workers. By doing so, she hopes to generate solutions that improve care workers’ work and family conditions and structure a more functional and fairer care economy.

Emily Zitek

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Industrial and Labor Relations: organizational behavior