Professor Riordan teaches courses in Introductory Sociology, Research Methods, Statistics, and the Sociology of Education.  His major area of specialization is the social organization of schools and the educational outcomes that are related to various types of school organization.  He is the author of a textbook in the sociology of education entitled Equality and Achievement (2004) that is now in its second edition.  He has studied the effects of single and mixed sex education at all levels of schooling for the past two decades and is the author of Girls and Boys in School: Together or Separate? (1990), and numerous professional papers on this subject.

Currently, he is conducting research on public single-sex schools in a New York State in a study that begins in kindergarten and follows students through the fifth grade.  In addition, he is the Project Director for a large national study of public single sex schools for at-risk children with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.  He has been a keynote speaker, panelist, expert trial witness, researcher, and author on this subject for 20 years.   He was a signatory of an Amicus Brief in the VMI case and has written declarations in court cases involving single-sex schools.

Dr. Riordan has extensive experience in survey evaluation research, most recently with Childreach and Brighter Choice Charter Schools.  During 1993 to 1997, Riordan served as an evaluator for Childreach in a program called Buffalo Banks and Borewells: Childreach Makes Sense of International Development.  Riordan possesses advanced training and experience in quantitative techniques, having completed a two-year postdoctoral program at the Center for the Study of the Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University.

Prior to his work as a Professor of Sociology, Dr. Riordan was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer and served as a consultant to the Peace Corps for a number of years. He also served as the director of interracial summer programs with the Encampment For Citizenship Program in New York City.

Both of Professor Riordan’s daughters have gone on to careers in educational research and policy.  His wife Arline also works in the field of education serving as Assistant Dean of Graduate Admissions in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College and she is currently pursuing graduate work in Philosophy at Boston College.