Economic sociology at Cornell has ranked as a top-10 graduate training program for over a decade. The U.S. News and World Report (2001) ranks Cornell's graduate program in economic sociology among the top four, alongside those of Stanford, Berkeley, and Princeton.

CSES seeks to attract and train the best and brightest of the next generation of scholars in the fields relating to the study of economy and society. At Cornell, graduate students have ample opportunity to work with faculty members on sponsored research projects. Graduate courses are offered each year in economic sociology, network analysis, and organizational behavior, and special topics graduate seminars and independent studies are also encouraged in the graduate program.

Each year CSES provides small grants to graduate students wishing to pursue the study of economic sociology and organizations. These are given directly to incoming graduate students upon acceptance to a degree program at Cornell and can be applied for again in subsequent years.

Graduate students play an active role in the daily life of the Center. For example, each working group has a graduate student intern who works closely with the group's faculty coordinator. They are strongly encouraged to present papers at the working group meetings and to contribute articles to the CSES Working Paper Series.

Cornell graduate students have done well on the job market in recent years. Cornell Sociology Ph.D.'s since 1995, who were trained in the study of economic sociology, organizations, and network analysis and now hold tenure-track appointments, include:

• Li Mary Ma (2010)
  Assistant Professor, Sociology
  Tongji University, Shanghai, China
   
• Ed Carberry (2008)
  Assistant Professor, Business-Society Management
  Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (the Netherlands)
   
• John Scott (2008)
  Adjunct Assistant Professor, Public Policy
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
   
• Ko Kuwabara (2007)
  Assistant Professor
  Columbia University Graduate School of Business
   
• Min-Dong Paul Lee (2007)
  Assistant Professor
  College of Business, University of South Florida
   
• Arnout van de Rijt (2007)
  Assistant Professor, Sociology
  SUNY-Stony Brook
   
• Damon Centola (2006)
  Assistant Professor
  MIT's Sloan School of Management
   
• Zhilin Liu (2006)
  Assistant Professor
  School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
   
• Erik Volz (2006)
  Researcher
  Dept. of Epidemiology, University of Michigan
   
• Wubiao Zhou (2006)
  Assistant Professor, Sociology
  Nanyan Technological University, East Asia Singapore
   
• Joy Pixley ('02 -- life course, organizations)
  Assistant Professor
  Department of Sociology, University of California at Irvine
   
• Brent Simpson ('01 -- rational choice, economic sociology)
  Associate Professor
  Department of Sociology, University of South Carolina
   
• James Kitts ('01 -- collective action, economic sociology)
  Assistant Professor
  Graduate School of Business, Columbia University
   
• Pawan Dhingra ('01 -- economic sociology, ethnicity)
  Assistant Professor
  Dept. of Sociology, Oberlin College
   
• Yang Cao ('99 -- economic sociology, organizations)
  Associate Professor
  Department of Sociology, UNC - Charlotte
   
• Rebecca Matthews ('98 -- economic sociology)
  Analyst
  US Bureau of Census
   
• Jayati Lal ('98 -- economic sociology, women and development)
  Assistant Professor
  Department of Sociology and Women's Studies Program, University of Michigan
   
• Duncan Watts ('97 -- network analysis, applied mathematics)
  Associate Professor
  Department of Sociology, Columbia University
   
• Lisa Keister ('97 -- economic sociology, organizations)
  Professor and Director of Markets and Management Studies
  Department of Sociology, Duke University
   
• Sarah Soule ('95 -- organizations, social movements)
  Professor
  Stanford Business School, Stanford University
   
• Raymond Liedka ('95 -- network analysis, quantitative methods)
  Assistant Professor
  Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Oakland University
   
• Paul Ingram ('95 -- economic sociology, organizations)
  David W. Zalaznick Associate Professor of Business
  Business School, Columbia University