As we begin the semester, we're highlighting Bryn Mawr's newest faculty members. The College supports faculty excellence in both research and teaching.
"My research uncovers the ways that structural racism organizes urban space and shapes our lives. My book, Grasping for the American Dream: Racial Segregation, Residential Mobility and Homeownership (Routledge 2021) examines how working class Black homebuyers understand their own agency in pursuing homeownership within the structure of racial segregation. I found that deep adherence to the American Dream leaves working class Black homebuyers more vulnerable to exploitation in a racially structured housing market. While other researchers have looked at causes and effects of racial housing segregation from a macro level or conducted ethnographic studies of specific segregated communities, the main contribution of this project is a subjective understanding of the moving process for Black aspiring homebuyers. I have also published on this study in City & Community.
"In my current research, I am building on this area of work by investigating how multiracial households navigate racial segregation and make housing decisions. In the summer of 2021, I supervised five undergraduate student researchers who conducted about 50 qualitative interviews for this project with members of multiracial households. I plan to build on this research for a new book project on the meanings of diversity and how people whose lives intersect racial categories find belonging.
"Another area of my ongoing research looks at the politics of new urbanist interventions in public space. I am co-authoring a paper with a former undergraduate student on the social cleavages, including race and class, that shape the public discourse around bike lanes.
"In my teaching, I mix deep theoretical engagement with texts with practical hands-on experiences with the goal of teaching students to think critically about social structures and interventions into those structures. I teach about the sociology of race and racism, urban sociology, social theory, qualitative methods, and the Black American experience."