Staff

Jennifer Jihye Chun is Professor of Asian American Studies and Labor Studies and Chair of the UCLA Labor Studies Program. She is Associate Director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE), where she leads the Transnational Gender and Labor Working Group, a joint initiative between the IRLE and the Center for the Study of Women (CSW)|Streisand Center.

Her research and teaching focuses on the interconnected worlds of labor, gender, race, migration, and social movements under global capitalism. Trained as a sociologist with a commitment to interdisciplinarity and ethnography, she has produced a body of scholarship that examines how workers employed on the bottom rungs of the labor market have sought to make sense of and collectively transform the unequal power dynamics that have shaped their everyday lives. Her first book, Organizing at the Margins: the Symbolic Politics of Labor in South Korea and the United States (Cornell University Press, 2009), highlights the significance of the symbolic as a distinct form of worker power for women and immigrants who labor in low-paid, precarious jobs under neoliberal employment regimes. Her second book Against Abandonment: Repertoires of Solidarity in South Korean Protest (co-authored with Ju Hui Judy Han and forthcoming from Stanford University Press), follows the turn to heightened forms of drama, ritual, and suffering in the protest repertoires of minoritized workers, especially women employed in precarious jobs. She has also written numerous articles, book chapters, and other publications about gender, migration, and care work; immigrant workers and community-based organizing; and informal and precarious labor politics. She is the co-editor of Gendering Struggles against Informal and Precarious Work (in Political Power and Social Theory), Care Work in Transition (in Critical Sociology), and Gender and Politics in Contemporary Korea (in the Journal of Korean Studies).

She received her B.A. in History at Dartmouth College, and her M.A. and PhD in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was previously on the faculty in the Department of Sociology at The University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto. While at the University of Toronto, she served as the Director of the Centre for the Study of Korea in the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs.

Tobias Higbie is Professor of History and Labor Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Professor Higbie is a labor historian whose research explores the intersection of work, migration, and social movement organizing in the United States. His current research (with Gaspar Rivera Salgado) focuses on new immigrants and labor unions in Los Angeles and Chicago during the 1970s and 1980s. His most recent book, Labor’s Mind: a History of the Working-Class Intellectual Life, illuminates the world of working-class self-education and labor movement education that seeded the union upsurge of the 1930s and prefigured the rise of university-based labor scholarship. His first book, Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-1930 (winner of two book awards), is a study of migrant labor and the politics of belonging that showed the centrality of so-called marginal workers to the development of American industrial society.Higbie led the effort to launch UCLA’s Labor Studies interdepartmental degree program and served as the program’s chair from 2019-2022. Before that he was chair of the UCLA Labor and Workplace Studies program from 2014-2019. Before coming the UCLA in 2007, Higbie was an assistant professor in the Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois (2005-2007), and the Director of the Center for Family and Community History at the Newberry Library (2000-2005). As a graduate student, Higbie was part of a large-scale organizing campaign to win bargaining rights for graduate student employees. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Illinois and is a member of the American Federation of Teachers.

Courses: LBR STDS 375, LBR STDS 101 Introduction to Social Movements and Labor in Los Angeles

As the Manager for the Labor Studies Interdepartmental program, Elizbeth Espinoza develops initiatives and programs to enhance the academic experience for our Labor Studies students, helps prepare them for the workforce, and fosters an environment where students feel supported and connected to each other and to our program of study.

With over 20 years of experience in program development, mentoring, career and  academic counseling, and more recently in academic personnel hiring, Elizbeth is passionate about developing initiatives that empower working-class families and workers. A Bruin Alum herself, Elizbeth became increasingly  involved in student organizing where she collaborated on developing and implementing high school outreach conferences and mentoring programs. After graduation, Elizbeth returned to the San Joaquin Valley, her second home, to work as a Youth Workforce and Leadership Development Specialist. Enrolling in Stanford University’s Teacher Education Program, Elizbeth specialized in math education and taught middle school and high school students before becoming the first Student Affairs Officer for the UCLA Labor Studies minor program.

During her time as SAO, Student Programming Coordinator at the UCLA Labor Center, and in her current position under Labor Studies, Elizbeth is humbled and honored to contribute to the growth and success of this program leading to the development of the first Labor Studies Major in the University of California system. This journey has led her to currently serve as the Western Regional Representative for UALE, the United Association of Labor Education. A full-time working mom of two exceptionally talented young scholars, in her spare time, Elizbeth also serves as a parent coordinator for Kids for Freedom and Justice, an LA-based kids’ group dedicated to learning and engaging in practices of liberation, freedom and justice toward a better world.

Gloria describes herself as a citizen of the world. Originally from Colombia, she moved to Los Angeles where she developed an interest in learning about the world. This passion led her to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in International Development Studies at UCLA. She was part of the Transfer Summer Program and participated in the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program where she conducted research on Chinese Immigrant Labor in the construction of Panama’s railroad and canal.

Looking for international experience, Gloria joined UCLA’s Education Abroad Program in Beijing. She also pursued a MBA focused on Strategic Management from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, where she was involved with the Erasmus Student Network (the biggest student organization in Europe) and promoted student development and cultural diversity. Before her current position, she worked as the Global Training Programs Coordinator at Google where she supported career and professional development programs.

As the Student Affairs Officer for the Labor Studies Major and Minor, she is enthusiastic to share her experience with students and guide them in achieving their goals. She believes in a holistic approach to student advising; one that encompasses academic, career, and personal counseling for students. Besides providing academic advising to students, she manages the Labor Studies undergraduate programs, the Labor Summer Research Program, course scheduling, event planning, and student outreach.

As IRLE’s Digital Communications Specialist, Marcos increases the visibility of the Labor Studies academic program by producing strategic content and managing the website and multiple social and multimedia platforms. Having worked at UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute and leading Afro-Latinx Connection de UCLA as Co-President during his undergraduate years, his experience lies in original content creation, graphic design, and storytelling for student audiences. He aims to create easily-digestible, engaging content and craft messages that empower and educate.

Marcos Ruiz Rojas graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Affairs with minors in African American Studies and Chicanx and Central American Studies. 

Simran is the Academic Programs Assistant for the Labor Studies program. She is a third-year Sociology and Labor Studies double major. This past summer, she researched alongside her peers in the Workers and Learners Project in the summer of 2024. Currently, she is interning with the LA County Federation of Labor. Her intersectional identity as a Panjabi, Sikh woman grounds her in labor struggle, and fight for liberation.

As a Labor Studies student, she hopes to organize her community to improve their material conditions. Simran aims to approach the struggle through an intersectional lens, evident in the various organizations she is a part of.