Broadly, Michael Gaddis's work provides evidence of inequality in the US related to race/ethnicity, social class, and education. He studies educational inequality across five dimensions: (1) the effects of educational credentials on important life outcomes, including employment and health; (2) when and how educational credentials attenuate or exacerbate racial/ethnic discrimination; (3) intergenerational mobility as it relates to the direct and indirect effects of educational attainment across generations; (4) differences in students’ mental health and campus-level stigma across college and universities and the subsequent impact on academic achievement and attainment; and (5) racial/ethnic and SES inequalities in cultural capital and social capital and their effects on academic achievement and attainment among K–12 students. 
Dr. Gaddis published a 2018 book on the experimental method used to investigate discrimination titled Audit Studies: Behind the Scenes with Theory, Method, and Nuance. His research has been published in numerous journals. In 2020, he was named Honorable Mention for the Distinguished Early Career Award by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. Prior to joining NWEA, Dr. Gaddis was an associate professor of sociology at UCLA, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy research at the University of Michigan, and an assistant professor of sociology and demography at Penn State University. He received a PhD in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.