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Social Sciences Division
Sociology Department
PhD Candidate
Graduate
Latin American & Latino Studies
Rachel Carson College Academic Building
N/A
Rachel Carson College
University of California, Santa Cruz
Ph.D. in Sociology (Expected date June 2023)
Designated emphasis in Latin American and Latino Studies
Dissertation Tite:Desiring A Better Life: Heteronoormativity, Mobility, and Generational Negotiations Among Latinas
Dissertation Committee: Julie Bettie (co-chair), Jessica Taft (co-chair), and Lorena Garcia
Comprehensive Exam Committee: Jessica Taft, Julie Bettie, Sylavann Falcón, and Lorena Garcia
San Francisco State University
Master of Arts in Sexuality Studies
Thesis: “When I Left, I Felt like I Betrayed Them”: Latina Women Navigate the Benefits and Harms of a College Education
Advisors: Jessica Fields and Belinda Reyes
University of California, Santa Barbara
Bachelor of Arts, Sociology
Bachelor of Arts, Feminist Studies
Thesis: Hookup Culture: How Young Latina Women Negotiate and Construct their Sexual Identities
Advisor: Leila J. Rupp
I am a qualitative researcher that uses feminist theories of color, such as intersectionality and transnational feminist theory, to examine how gender, sexual, racial, and class inequalities are co-constitutive elements within the US. My dissertation project is a multisite ethnography that researches how two mobility paths, higher education and migration, shape Latinas' own gender and sexual subjectivities as well as generational negotiations of these social forces among migrant mothers and their college-going daughters.
Broadly speaking, my research interests lie in the intersection of sexual, gender, race, and class formations.
Sexualities; Gender; Race/Ethnicity; Mobility (Immigration and Higher Education); Girlhood Studies; Latinas; Women of Color Feminisms; Queer of Color Critique; Queer Theory; Qualitative and Feminist Methods.
2023- Sociologist for Women in Society Chow-Green Dissertation Scholarship Recipient
2023- AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research
2023- Alternative AAUW Dissertation Fellowship
2023- Honorable Mention, Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
2022-2023- UC President's Pre-Professoriate Fellowship
2022- The Sociology of Sexualities Martin P. Levine Memorial Dissertation Fellowship Award
2020-2021-Sociology of Race, Class, and Gender Graduate Award, UCSC
2019-2020- Graduate Student Grant, Research Center for the Americas, UCSC
2019-2020- Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, UCSC
2018-2019- Women’s, Health, Gender, and Empowerment (WHGE) Student Ambassador, UCSC
Spring 2018- Lionel Cantú Memorial Award, UCSC
2017-2018- Regent’s Fellowship, UCSC
Spring 2017- University’s Graduate Student Award for Distinguished Achievement, SF State
Spring 2017- Jim Brogan Teaching Scholarship, SF State
Academic School Year 2016-2017- CSU Sally Casanova Predoctoral Scholar, SF State
Summer 2016- Chicana Latina Foundation
Academic School Year 2015- 2016-Deborah H. Tolman Fellowship Sexuality Studies, SF State
Summer 2013- Spring 2015-McNair Scholars Program, UCSB
Spring 2015- Dr. Clyde Woods Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Collegiality, UCSB
Mentoring Experience
Winter 2022- Science Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
Summer 2021-2023- Science Internship Program
Winter 2022- Koret Graduate Mentor
2021-2023- Pathways to Research Graduate Mentor
Spring 2018- UCSC’s Women’s Center MINT Program (Matriculating, Influencing, Networking and Triumphing) Scholarship Search Committee
Fall 2017- Present-Cultivamos Excelencia Graduate Mentor
Fall 2017- Spring 2019-UCSC’s Women’s Center MINT Program (Matriculating, Influencing, Networking and Triumphing)
Service Experience
2021-present- Graduate Student Coordinator for the WoC Community Group at UCSC
2020-2022- ASA Sexualities Section Equity Task Force
2020-2021- Graduate Student Representative for the ASA Sexualities Section
Spring 2018- Chicana Latina Foundation Scholarship Search Committee
Winter 2018- Chicana Latina Foundation Scholarship Workshop
Winter 2018- Sociology Job Candidate Student Search Committee
Fall 2017- Sociology Job Candidate Student Search Committee
April 2022-“Made in LA: How Working-Class Latinas Experience and Remember Girlhood.” Pacific Sociological Association, Sacramento, CA.
August 2018-“I Don’t Want a Life Like That: Upwardly Mobile Latinas’ Gender and Sexual Identities.” American Sociological Association, Philadelphia, PA.
April 2018-“I Don’t Want a Life Like That: The Implications of a College Education for Upwardly Mobile Latinas.” Borderlands Conference UC Santa Barbara.
March 2018 -“I Don’t Want a Life Like That: Working-Class Latina Women Navigate the Benefits and Harms of a College Education.” Pacific Sociological Association, Long Beach, California.
March 2018 -“When I Left, I Felt Like I Betrayed Them: How College Education Impacts the Well-Being of Working-Class Latinas.” Thinking Gender, The University of California, Los Angeles. Los Angeles, CA.
May 2015-“UCSB Hookup Culture and Latina College Women’s Sexual Subjectivities.” Feminist Studies Honors Symposium, Santa Barbara, California.
April 2015 -"Hookup Culture: How Young Latina College Women Negotiate their Sexual Identities,” National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, San Francisco, California.
Parra, Michelle Gomez, and Lorena Garcia. 2023. ““I have Tasted Freedom”: An Intersectional Analysis of College-Going Latinas’ Desire for and Meanings of Mobility.” Gender & Society, DOI: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912432231156374
Parra, Michelle Gomez. 2022. "An ‘Anchor Baby’ Yearns for a Feminist of Colour and Decolonial Sex Education." Sex Education, DOI: 10.1080/14681811.2022.2071251
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