Department of Organization

I study workplace and economic inequality through the lens of gender, race, and social class. My current research investigates how gender, race, and social class influence access to earnings and capital in some of the wealthiest industries in the United States.

My recent book, entitled Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street (2022), presents an insider’s look at the inner workings of the notoriously rich and secretive U.S. hedge fund industry. The book investigates why the industry garners extreme wealth, why mostly white men benefit, and how reforming Wall Street could create a more equal society. To build on this research, I am currently conducting interviews for a comparative project on inequality in access to capital at venture capital and technology startup firms in the Silicon Valley.

My first book, Divested: Inequality in the Age of Finance (2020) with Ken-Hou Lin, demonstrates why widening inequality in the United States cannot be understood without examining the rise of big finance. We investigate how the growth of the financial sector has dramatically transformed the American economy by redistributing resources from workers and families into the hands of owners, executives, and financial professionals.
 
Before joining IOA in June of 2020, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab and Institute for Gender Research from 2017-2020. In 2017, I graduated with a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. I pursued sociology after working as a Research Analyst for BlackRock, Inc. from 2007-2010 during the global financial crisis.