Our faculty continue to excel in their diverse endeavors, contributing significantly to their respective fields through impactful research, innovative pedagogy, and dedicated service.
Our faculty continue to excel in their diverse endeavors, contributing significantly to their respective fields through impactful research, innovative pedagogy, and dedicated service.
As a Faculty Associate with the Collaborative for Teaching Innovation,
Cara Chiaraluce has co-organized a Faculty Learning Community on Accessibility, in which SCU members work together to become confident practitioners of inclusive, student-centered pedagogical strategies. She has recently authored an article “Digital Storytelling and Inclusive Pedagogy” to be published in an Innovative Pedagogies volume (Emerald, 2025). She also attended the fourth annual Carework Network Summit (June, 2025) an international conference at Duke University exploring the theme "Histories and Futures of Care," which examined global care policies, migrant labor, and social inequalities.
Post receiving tenure,
Di Di has been away from campus this winter and spring on a research sabbatical. We know she has been very busy working on a number of projects and we can’t wait to hear more during her next update
.
Maggie Hunter is currently co-writing two papers from her Gen Z Research Project where seven sociology majors worked as research assistants conducting a total of 45 interviews with college students around the country. The first paper is co-authored with Sade Hashemi ‘26 on Gen Z and social media activism, and the second paper, co-authored with Michelle Flores Hernandez ‘26, is on Gen Z and student belonging. Because of her administrative leadership at the university, Maggie has been invited to the Academic Boardroom Podcast for a conversation about critical issues in higher education including the recent challenges to academic freedom, the future of diversity and inclusion, and the emerging role of AI. Finally, Maggie will present a paper this summer at the American Sociological Association’s annual conference titled, “Du Bois and Fanon on Black Consciousness and the Politics of Disappearance.”
After being awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation grant and receiving tenure
, Molly M. King has been on a research sabbatical this academic year. We look forward to a fuller update when back from sabbatical.
Patrick Lopez-Aguado continues to teach criminal justice courses and this academic year he also taught the required qualitative methods (SOCI 118) course and the capstone. He is working closely with a number of Public Defenders Offices, and continues to speak with Sociologists about how their research can influence legal outcomes for marginalized communities.
Time is flying for Laura Nichols who is completing her third year as chair of the department and has continued her work on research related to the experiences of transfer students transferring from community colleges to four-year universities. With two (now graduated) undergraduate research assistants and a community college partner, they published “Increasing the Enrollment and Success of Transfer Students from Community College to Private Selective 4-Year Colleges” as well as a short policy paper. The findings from this work allowed the department to implement some changes to better welcome and resource transfer students which we will continue to evaluate for this years’ entering cohort. Laura also worked as a fellow in the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education and with the other Fellows, is helping to create a program for newly tenured associate professors.
This year, Laura Robinson is the faculty advisor for the 2026 SVSR (for more, see the story above). In addition, Robinson designed a new course for the Ethics Core Curriculum on ethical innovation that speaks to our SCU mission preparing students for service to the common good. Student enthusiasm on this Silicon Valley theme has made the course an absolute pleasure to teach. As for research and student mentorship, thanks to departmental support, Robinson trained SCU student editors for several projects in media sociology. Among them, one served on the editorial team for three books co-edited on AI pedagogies with Robinson, tech ethics, and scholarship on digital sociology with the Brazil US Colloquium on Communication Studies. Additional SCU student researchers participated in the international ICA Media Sociology Postconference Webinar for which Robinson is one of the lead organizers. Our SCU student researchers are key participants charing panels in an event which brings over 30 global scholars together across time zones to discuss the impacts of media on society, ethics, and inequalities. I am thankful to departmental funding for making this student mentorship possible.
