Meet Sociology’s New Faculty Member
It is a privilege to join the faculty of Sociology here at Santa Clara University and contribute to the mission of this storied institution in the Silicon Valley. I look forward to meeting our dedicated alumni and collaborating with students in the classroom and beyond. Having just moved across the country from Boston University, I can say that it is good to be home in the Golden State!
In this fall quarter, I have been busy settling into the classroom and in the University community. The campus is abuzz and that energy is being brought into the classroom by students as well. My teaching this quarter includes an exploration of how we make places and, in turn, how places make us. Over the course of the year, I look forward to developing courses in urban sociology and incorporating concerns of the local region into those explorations.
In my past research, I have studied the exclusionary effects of gentrification in an urban church, how safety is produced by undocumented immigrants living in sanctuary churches, and the place-based strategies of survival by immigrants in two enforcement landscapes of the US South. I am at work preparing the latter into a book. While I am an ethnographer through and through, I have also utilized visual and spatial methods in my research.
If you are near the Department, come by and say hello, talk about research, or share about your experience with the SCU Sociology Department.