Faculty
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Laura Acosta
Assistant Professor. PhD Northwestern University. Cultural and political sociology. -
Camila Alvarez
Assistant Professor, Environmental sociology, environmental justice, and critical quantitative methodology. Recipient of the Career Enhancement Fellowship funded by Mellon Foundation -
Mary Blair-Loy
Professor, Director, Center for Research on Gender in STEM. PhD Chicago. Sociology of gender, culture, inequality, work and organizations, family.
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Michel Estefan
Associate Professor of Teaching, Director of Undergraduate Studies. PhD UC Berkeley. Social theory, political sociology, law and society, comparative and historical methods, Latin America, inclusive and equitable pedagogy and teaching.
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Ivan Evans
Professor, Provost of Eleanor Roosevelt College. PhD Wisconsin 1986. African studies, political sociology, sociology of development, ethnic and race relations, social movements, sociology of the environment.
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John H. Evans
Professor; Tata Chancellor’s Chair in Social Sciences; Associate Dean of Social Sciences; Co-director of the Institute for Practical Ethics. Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Science, Politics, Public Ethics
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David FitzGerald
Professor, T.E. Gildred Chair in U.S.-Mexican Relations and honorary Sergio Vieira de Mello Chair in refugee studies. PhD UCLA 2005. Law and society, international migration, political sociology, nationalism and ethnicity, comparative-historical and ethnographic methodology.
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Harvey S. Goldman
Professor. PhD UC Berkeley 1978. Theory, sociology of intellectuals and of knowledge, sociology of culture.
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Neil Gong
Associate Professor. PhD UCLA. Power and social control, sociology of medicine, social theory, STS, ethnographic methodology. -
Bennetta Jules-Rosette
Distinguished Professor & Director of the African & African-American Studies Research Center. PhD Harvard 1973. Sociology of religion, sociology of knowledge, sociology of culture, sociology of art, ethnographic film and media methods, African studies.
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Lane Kenworthy
Yankelovich Endowed Chair Professor. PhD Wisconsin 1993. Comparative political economy, poverty, inequality, social policy, politics.
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Martha Lampland
Professor. PhD Chicago 1987. Political economy, social and cultural history, science studies, Central Europe (Hungary).
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Kevin Lewis
Professor. PhD Harvard 2012. Culture, social networks, social psychology, inequality, family.
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Thomas Medvetz
Associate Professor. PhD UC Berkeley 2007. Sociology of knowledge and intellectuals, classical and contemporary theory, political sociology, cultural sociology.
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Daniel Navon
Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies. PhD Columbia 2013. Sociology of science and knowledge/STS, comparative-historical sociology, social theory, medical sociology, qualitative methods.
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Kwai Ng
Professor, Department Chair. PhD Chicago 2004. Sociology of law, sociology of language, social theory, religion.
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Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra
Professor. PhD University of Edinburgh 2010. Economic sociology, sociology of markets, science and technology studies, cultural sociology, financial markets, art markets, public valuations, innovation.
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Richard Pitt
Professor. PhD University of Arizona. Social psychology, religion, (higher) education, work and occupations, gender and family -
Danielle Raudenbush
Associate Professor. PhD Chicago. Urban sociology, health and medicine, poverty and inequality, qualitative methods.
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Vanesa Ribas
Associate Professor. PhD North Carolina 2012. International migration, race relations, work.
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Akos Rona-Tas
Professor. PhD Michigan 1990. Economic sociology, uncertainty and risk, rational choice theory, comparative social stratification, survey research, methodology.
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John D. Skrentny
Professor. PhD Harvard. Science and innovation policy; education; work; immigration; political sociology; law and society.
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April Sutton
Assistant Professor. PhD The University of Texas at Austin 2015. Social stratification, education, gender, and spatial inequalities. -
Charles Thorpe
Professor. PhD UC San Diego 2001. Social theory, Sociology of knowledge and intellectuals, Sociology of science and technology, Cultural sociology, Sociology of childhood and youth.
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Christena Turner
Associate Professor. PhD Stanford 1987. Japanese society, culture, everyday life, organizations, Chinese society, work.
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Jake Watson
Assistant Professor, International migration, with a focus on refugees
Emeritus Faculty
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Richard Biernacki
Professor. PhD UC Berkeley 1988. Qualitative methodology, comparative-historical studies of Europe, culture, theory. -
Amy Binder
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Rae Lesser Blumberg
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Jack Douglas
PhD Princeton 1969. Deviance, theory, social economics, history of social thought, field methods. -
Jeffrey M. Haydu
Professor. PhD UC Berkeley 1984. Social movements, comparative-historical methods, class relations, food. -
Rebecca Klatch
Professor Emerita. PhD Harvard 1984. Sociology of gender, masculinities, sociology of family, social psychology/identities, race, American society, field research methods. Email: rklatch@ucsd.edu.
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Richard Madsen
Director of UC Fudan Center, Professor Emeritus. PhD Harvard 1977. Sociology of ideas/culture, sociology of religion, comparative sociology, Chinese society, "moral anthropology." Email: rmadsen@ucsd.edu.
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Hugh "Bud" Mehan
Professor Emeritus. Discourse processes, sociology of education, educational inequalities. Email: bmehan@ucsd.edu. Tel: 858-534-6765. Office: CRB 166 (CREATE).
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David Phillips
Professor Emeritus. PhD Princeton 1970. Demography, epidemiology, medical errors, suicide, accidents, homicide, mass media. Email: dphillips@ucsd.edu.
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Andrew Scull
Emeritus Distinguished Professor. PhD Princeton 1974. Historical, psychiatry, medicine, social control, professions, theory. -
Gershon Shafir
Distinguished Professor. PhD UC Berkeley 1980. Comparative-historical sociology, nationalism, citizenship and globalization, Middle Eastern societies, theory. -
Carlos Waisman
Professor Emeritus. Political sociology, development, theory. Email: cwaisman@ucsd.edu.
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Jacqueline Wiseman
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Leon Zamosc
Professor Emeritus. PhD University of Manchester-England 1983. Latin American societies, political economy, development, social movements, research methods, ethnicity, rural sociology.
Adjunct Faculty
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Yen Le Espiritu
Email: yespiritu@ucsd.edu.
Yen Espiritu received her Ph.D. from UC Los Angeles in 1990. She is a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UCSD. Focusing on Asian America, her research has sought to challenge the homogeneous descriptions of communities of color and the narrowness of mutually exclusive binaries by attending to generational, ethnic, class, and gender variations within constructed racial categories. In particular, her work has called attention to the ways in which racialized ethnicity is relational rather than atomized and discrete and the ways in which group identities necessarily form through interaction with other groups "through complicated experiences of conflict and cooperation" and in structural contexts of power.
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Mary L. Walshok
Email: mwalshok@ucsd.edu. Office: UNEX Complex.
Mary Walshok received her BA from Pomona College and her MA and PhD in sociology from Indiana University. Currently she is the associate vice chancellor for Extended Studies and Public Programs and professor of sociology. A thought leader on aligning workforce development with regional economic growth, she is the author of Blue Collar Women, Knowledge Without Boundaries, Closing America's Job Gap, and the forthcoming Invention and Reinvention: The Evolution of San Diego's Entrepreneurial Economy. As an industrial sociologist she has researched various American regions for the US Department of Labor, NSF, and Lilly Foundation. Walshok is active on numerous community and national boards and is co-founder of CONNECT, one of the most admired innovation cluster development organizations in the world.
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Abigail Andrews
Email: alandrews@ucsd.edu
I am Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning and Director of the Mexican Migration Field Research Program. My research takes a critical, feminist lens on state violence and borders, to inform struggles for immigrant justice. (Check out my books Undocumented Politics and Banished Men). For more...
My CV is here
For more, please check out my website
or find me on Twitter @abigailandrews1.
Affiliated Faculty
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Isaac W. Martin
Professor. PhD UC Berkeley 2003. Fiscal sociology, social movements, political sociology, social policy.
Lecturers
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Maud Arnal
Email: mmarnal@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB 475 | Office Hours: TBD
Fall 2025: SOCI 104 Field Research: Methods of Participant Observation & SOCI 173 Sociology of Health, Illness, and Medicine
Winter 2026: SOCI 106 Comparative and Historical Methods , SOCI 115 Social Problems & SOCI 161 Sociology of the Life Course
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Michael Calderon-Zaks
Email: m2calderonzaks@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB 417 | Office Hours: TWTh 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Fall 2025: SOCI 148E Inequality and Jobs & SOCI 180 Social Movements and Social Protest
Winter 2026: SOCI 127 Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity & SOCI 175 Nationality and Citizenship
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Christine Crofts
Email: ccrofts@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB 473 | Office Hours: TBD
Fall 2025: SOCI 137 Sociology of Food & 142 Social Deviance
Winter 2026: SOCI 137 Sociology of Food & SOCI 154 Religious Institutions in America
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Charlene Holkenbrink-Monk
Email: ceholkenbrinkmonk@ucsd.edu
Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD
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Hart Hornor-Jones
Email: hhornorj@ucsd.edu
Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD
Fall 2025: SOCI 109 Analysis of Sociological Data
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Kevin Kilpatrick
Email: k2kilpatrick@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB TBD | Office Hours: TBD
Fall 2025: SOCI 103M Computer Applications to Data Management in Sociology
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Kristopher Kohler
Email: kkohler@ucsd.edu
Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD
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Elizabeth Miller
Email: eam001@ucsd.edu
Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD
Fall 2025: SOCI 184 Gender and Film
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Khasha Ostovany
Email: kostovany@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB TBD | Office Hours: By appointment
Winter 2026: SOCI 156 Sociology of Religion & SOCI 180 Social Movements and Social Protest
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Christine Payne
Email: capayne@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB 418 | Office Hours: TBA
Fall 2025: SOCI 70 General Sociology for Premedical Students & SOCI 135 Medical Sociology
Winter 2026: SOCI 136E Sociology of Mental Illness: A Historical Approach & SOCI 148 Political Sociology
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Julia Rogers
Email: jerogers@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB 467 | Office Hours: Wed 2pm - 4pm
Fall 2025: SOCI 104Q Qualitative Interviewing & 113 Sociology of the AIDS Epidemic
Winter 2026: SOCI 120 Sociology Through Literature & SOCI 136F Sociology of Mental Illness in Contemporary Society
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Jonathan Ruiz
Email: jjr026@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB 474 | Office Hours: TBD
Fall 2025: SOCI 30 Science, Technology, and Society & SOCI 153 Urban Sociology
Winter 2026: SOCI 109M Research Reporting & SOCI 138 Genetics and Society
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Jeffrey Tirshfield
Email: jtirshfield@ucsd.edu
Office: TBA| Office Hours: TBA
Winter 2026
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Pablo Victoria Torres
Email: pvictori@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB 473 | Office Hours: TBA
Fall 2025: SOCI150 Madness and the Movies
Winter 2026: SOCI 118 Sociology of Gender
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Tobias Watson
Email:
Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD
Winter 2026: SOCI 1 Introduction to Sociology
Visiting Scholars
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Baoqing Jiang
I am a Ph.D. student in Public Administration at Shandong University and will be a visiting graduate student in the Department of Sociology at UC San Diego for one year.
My research interests include digital governance and platform governance. My dissertation examines the role of platform enterprises in rural digital governance. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted within a major platform company in China, I investigate the strategies platforms employ at different stages of rural digitalization, as well as their interactions with local governments, village cadres, and community actors throughout the process.
Email: bajiang@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB453
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Wei Zhong
I am a Ph.D. student in Sociology at Xiamen University and will be a visiting graduate student in the Department of Sociology at UC San Diego for one year.
Wei Zhong is a Visiting Graduate Student in the Department of Sociology at UC San Diego. His current research interests primarily focus on cross-national comparative research, social inequality, and social mobility.
Email: w8zhong@ucsd.edu
Office: SSB453