I am sociologist of race and colonialism. My research broadly investigates how the history of US segregation and diversity are debated to change cultural boundaries of merit and inclusion in US cultural organizations. Conducting a Du Boisian sociology of the elite, I explore how workers in elite cultural institutions navigate, rationalize, and resist organizational change. Through ethnographic and archival methodologies, along with relevant quantitative methods, I situate developing frameworks of faculty merit and diversity, equity, and inclusion policies as part of a historical process of forming ideas about race and expertise within elite US organizations.
I have been supported by The Institute for Transformative Practice at Brown University, a fellowship at the Swearer Center, the Beatrice and Joseph Feinberg Memorial Fund, the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity at Brown University, and the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship. My additional research projects have been supported by the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America's Humanities Lab and the American Sociological Association's Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline. My ongoing and future research extends investigations into knowledge production, elites, and inequality to consider how universities are sites for maintaining structural racism and colonialism, with a focus on university-neighborhood relations (mutual aid and libraries) and desegregating sociology. My research, in addition to peer-reviewed publications, has produced digital humanities projects (with Dr. Elena Shih), such as AMORStories, which is a digital oral history archive documenting the experiences of Providence organizers and residents who mobilized to create a mutual aid network in the face of the 2020 pandemic and in the absence of robust state support. |
A copy of my CV is available here for download (as of 07/2022).
I am also hiring two research assistants (RAs) for conducting interviews as part of an oral history archival project on LGBTQIA+ Sikhs living in California. Learn more about the project and position done in collaboration with Jakara Movement, and submit an application by 8/31/22. |