Dr. Sampson Lee Blair is a family sociologist and demographer at The State University of New York (Buffalo).  His research focuses upon parent-child relationships, with particular emphasis on child and adolescent development.  In 2010, he received the Fulbright Scholar Award from the U.S. Department of State, wherein he studied parental involvement and children’s educational attainment in the Philippines.  He has examined a wide variety of relationship dynamics within families.  His recent research has focused upon marriage and fertility patterns in China.

He has served as chair of the Children and Youth research section of the American Sociological Association, as senior editor of Sociological Inquiry, Guest Editor of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, and on the editorial boards of Asian Women, Journal of Applied Youth Studies, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, Journal of Family Issues, Marriage and Family Review, Social Justice Research, Sociological Inquiry, International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, and Sociological Viewpoints.  He also serves on the international advisory board of Tambara, which is based at Ateneo de Davao University, in the Philippines.  In 2018, he was elected as Vice-President (North America) of the Research Committee on Youth (RC34), in the International Sociological Association.  In 2021, he received the Distinguished Career Service Award from the American Sociological Association, for his work with children and youth.

He is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and has taught abroad as a visiting professor at Xavier University (Ateneo de Cagayan) and University of Santo Tomas, in the Philippines.  In China, he has taught at Qingdao University, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and at East China Normal University (Shanghai). Since 2011, he has served as the editor of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research.