Faculty

Amy Binder

Professor. PhD Northwestern 1998. Culture, movements, education, organizations.

Mary Blair-Loy

Professor, Director, Center for Research on Gender in STEMM. PhD Chicago. Sociology of gender, culture, inequality, work and organizations, family.

Michel Estefan

Assistant Teaching Professor. PhD UC Berkeley. Social theory, political sociology, law and society, comparative and historical methods, Latin America, inclusive and equitable pedagogy and teaching.

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.

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

David FitzGerald

Professor, Gildred Chair in U.S.-Mexican Relations and Co-Director, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies. PhD UCLA 2005. Law and society, international migration, political sociology, nationalism and ethnicity, comparative-historical and ethnographic methodology.

Harvey S. Goldman

Professor. PhD UC Berkeley 1978. Theory, sociology of intellectuals and of knowledge, sociology of culture.

Neil Gong

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.

Lane Kenworthy

Yankelovich Endowed Chair Professor. PhD Wisconsin 1993. Comparative political economy, poverty, inequality, social policy, politics.

Martha Lampland

Professor. PhD Chicago 1987. Political economy, social and cultural history, science studies, Central Europe (Hungary).

Kevin Lewis

Associate Professor. PhD Harvard 2012. Culture, social networks, social psychology, inequality, family.

Thomas Medvetz

Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies. PhD UC Berkeley 2007. Sociology of knowledge and intellectuals, classical and contemporary theory, political sociology, cultural sociology.

Daniel Navon

Associate Professor. PhD Columbia 2013. Sociology of science and knowledge/STS, comparative-historical sociology, social theory, medical sociology, qualitative methods.

Kwai Ng

Professor, Department Chair. PhD Chicago 2004. Sociology of law, sociology of language, social theory, religion.

Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra

Associate Professor. PhD University of Edinburgh 2010. Economic sociology, sociology of markets, science and technology studies, cultural sociology, financial markets, art markets, public valuations, innovation.

Richard Pitt

Danielle Raudenbush

Associate Professor. PhD Chicago. Urban sociology, health and medicine, poverty and inequality, qualitative methods.

Vanesa Ribas

Associate Professor. PhD North Carolina 2012. International migration, race relations, work.

Akos Rona-Tas

Professor. PhD Michigan 1990. Economic sociology, uncertainty and risk, rational choice theory, comparative social stratification, survey research, methodology.

Gershon Shafir

Distinguished Professor. PhD UC Berkeley 1980. Comparative-historical sociology, nationalism, citizenship and globalization, Middle Eastern societies, theory.

John D. Skrentny

Professor. PhD Harvard. Science and innovation policy; education; work; immigration; political sociology; law and society.

April Sutton

Charles Thorpe

Professor. PhD UC San Diego 2001. Social and political theory, sociology of knowledge and intellectuals, sociology of science and technology, Marxism, culture, ecology and society.

Christena Turner

Associate Professor. PhD Stanford 1987. Japanese society, culture, everyday life, organizations, Chinese society, work.

Richard Biernacki

Rae Lesser Blumberg

Aaron Cicourel

Jack Douglas

Jeffrey M. Haydu

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.

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.

Hugh "Bud" Mehan

Professor Emeritus. Discourse processes, sociology of education, educational inequalities. Email: bmehan@ucsd.edu. Tel: 858-534-6765. Office: CRB 166 (CREATE).

David Phillips

Professor Emeritus. PhD Princeton 1970. Demography, epidemiology, medical errors, suicide, accidents, homicide, mass media. Email: dphillips@ucsd.edu.

Andrew Scull

Carlos Waisman

Professor Emeritus. Political sociology, development, theory. Email: cwaisman@ucsd.edu.

Jacqueline Wiseman

Leon Zamosc

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.

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.

Isaac W. Martin

Michael Calderon-Zaks

Email: m2calderonzaks@ucsd.edu

Office: SSB 418 | Office Hours: TBD

Fall 2022: SOCI 127 Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity & SOCI 180 Social Movements and Social Protest

Winter 2023: SOCI 125 Sociology of Immigration, SOCI 151 Social Movement from Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter & SOCI 175 Nationality and Citizenship

Jacob Hellman

Email: Jhellman@ucsd.edu

Office: SSB 416 | Office Hours: TBD

Fall 2022: SOCI 166 – Sociology of Knowledge

Winter 2023: SOCI 136 Data and Society

Bernardo Mackenna

Email: bmackenn@ucsd.edu

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Winter 2023: SOCI 109 Analysis of Sociological Data

Seth Merrit

Email: smerritt@ucsd.edu

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Fall 2022: SOCI 130 Population and Society

Ke Nie

Email: knie@ucsd.edu

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Winter 2023: SOCI 103M Computer Applications to Data Management in Sociology

Khasha Ostovany

Email:

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Winter 2023: SOCI 154 Religious Institutions in America & SOCI 158 Islam in the Modern World

Christine Payne

Email: capayne@ucsd.edu 

Office: SSB 417 | Office Hours: TBA 

Fall 2022: SOCI 60 The Practice of Social Research  & SOCI 106 Comparative and Historical Methods 

Winter 2023: SOCI 106 Comparative and Historical Methods, SOCI 135 Medical Sociology  & SOCI 148 Political Sociology

Spencer Potiker

Email: sppotiker@ucsd.edu

Office: SSB 418 | Office Hours: TBD

Fall 2022: SOCI 185 - Globalization & Social Developement

Winter 2023: SOCI 148E Inequality and Jobs

Julia Rogers

Email: jerogers@ucsd.edu

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Fall 2022: SOCI 104Q Qualitative Interviewing & SOCI 136F Sociology of Mental Illness in Contemporary Society 

Winter 2023: SOCI 113 Sociology of the AIDS Epidemic & SOCI 143 Suicide

Sevin Sagnic

Email: ssagnic@ucsd.edu

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Fall 2022: SOCI 125 Sociology of Immigration

Yael Shmaryahu-Yeshurun

Email: yshmaryahuyeshurun@ucsd.edu

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Winter 2023: SOCI 153 Urban Sociology

Valerie Summers

Email: vsummers@ucsd.edu

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Fall 2022: SOCI 141 Crime and Society

Jeff Tirshfield

Email: jtirshfield@ucsd.edu

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Fall 2022: SOCI 120T Sports Violence & SOCI 123 Japanese Culture Inside/Out: A Transnational Perspective

Brad Weinreb

Email: 

Office: TBD | Office Hours: TBD

Winter 2023: SOCI 159 Special Topics in Social Organizations and Institutions

Brittany Birberick

Email: bbirberick@ucsd.edu

BA University of Chicago, 2012, Anthropology

PhD University of California, Berkeley, 2021, Sociocultural Anthropology 

Research Interests: South Africa, urban history and planning, infrastructure, political affect, African film and photography, ethnographic methods, gambling and speculation 

I am a postdoctoral fellow for a Mellon funded project on Mobility, Temporality, and Africa’s Future Politics with the African Center for Migration Studies at the University of Witwatersrand and a visiting scholar in the department of sociology and AAASRC at UCSD. My research while at UCSD will focus on completing my first book manuscript, Paved with Gold, under the mentorship of Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette and Professor Ivan Evans. The project explores a part of Johannesburg, South Africa built on uncertainty and speculation through an anthropological and historical study of a single street in the neighborhood of Jeppestown. As a visiting scholar, I will also be editing a short ethnographic film adjacent to my larger project.

Yael Shmaryahu-Yeshurun

Email: yshmaryahuyeshurun@ucsd.edu

Postdoctoral Fellow Bar-Ilan University, 2021, Law

PhD Ben-Gurion University, 2020, Administration and Public Policy

MBA Ben-Gurion University, 2013, Business Administration in Social Leadership

BA (BSW) Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010, Social Work and Social Welfare

Research Interests: Urban Sociology, Urban planning, Political geography, Ethnicity, Nationalism, Qualitative Methods.

I am a postdoctoral fellow for a Marie Skłodowska Curie funded project (MSCA) on class and ethnicity intersectionality in Latinx-led Gentrification Process in Barrio Logan, San Diego.

The Fellowship is conducted at the University of California San Diego under the mentorship of Professor Gershon Shafir (Outgoing phase), and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the mentorship of Professor Avner De-Shalit, Political Science department (Return Phase).

In my doctoral dissertation I investigates the connection between Nationalism and Neo-Liberalism in the Israelis’ Settlement Policy in the periphery and contested cities. I developed the term “State-Led Ethno-Gentrification” to describe the policy and its implications.

Qianfeng Wu

Email: qiw039@ucsd.edu

Visiting Scholar, University of CaliforniaSan Diego, Sociology, 2021-2022

Ph.D in Progress, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, Sociology, 2016-Now

B.A,  Central University of Finance and Economics,Beijing, China, International Politics, 2014

Research Interests: Sociology of Culture, Sociology of Religion, Kam Studies, Qualitative Methods

Publications: Qianfeng Wu , 2021, Living Wisdom, Social Capital and House Construction of Kam

Village: A Study of the Housing Strategies of Traditional Village Residents in

Ethnic Areas(1990-2020)(in Chinese), Journal of Sociological Studies(4):195-215