**Sociologist Jeroen van der Waal (PhD Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2010) is Full Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Fellow at [Erasmus University College][], and a member of the E[rasmus Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Humanities][], and alumnus of [Young Erasmus][]. His research is predominantly located in the fields of political sociology and sociology of health.** Explaining why social stratification is linked to value orientations, voting behaviour, and health outcomes in Western societies is the bedrock of his research program. Informed by the Weberian distinction between class and status, Jeroen analyses how both economic and cultural stratification independently affect value orientations, voting behaviour and health, by means of very different mechanisms, and each in various ways. In order to do so, he goes beyond providing 'explanations' by means of re-establishing well-established empirical generalisations. Instead, the mechanism-based approach applied in Jeroen van der Waal's research programme considers such empirical generalisations mere starting points for research, that is, as patterns that need to be explained by uncovering the mechanisms that underlie these. **You can view Jeroen van der Waal's Google Scholar profile** **[here][].** **For more information you can also visit his** **[personal website][].** [Erasmus University College]: https://www.eur.nl/en/euc/ [rasmus Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Humanities]: https://www.egsh.eur.nl/ [Young Erasmus]: https://www.eur.nl/onderzoek/young-erasmus-academy [here]: http://scholar.google.nl/citations?user=dljD09sAAAAJ&hl=nl&oi=ao [personal website]: http://www.jeroenvanderwaal.com/