IRLE Experts
IRLE’s staff are nationally-recognized experts in low-wage labor, the future of work, the gig economy, immigrant workers, domestic employers, Black workers, workers and learners, labor history, labor unions, workplace occupational safety and health, human resources, among other areas of work. The IRLE also houses the Labor Studies academic program, the first major of its kind at the University of California.
For press and media interviews please contact, IRLE’s Director of Communications, Citlalli Chávez-Nava, citlallichavez@ucla.edu, (310)562-0943.
Abel Valenzuela Jr.
Immigration and labor markets, day laborers, poverty and inequality, immigration settlement patterns, demography and population studies, immigrant rights, mobility and opportunity, urban studies.
Tobias Higbie
Future of work, labor history, low-wage worker organizing in Los Angeles
Corinne Bendersky
Conflict management, leadership development, organizational behavior, and team effectiveness.
Victor Narro
Wage theft and wage policy, low-wage immigrant workers, immigration policy, and worker centers.
Gaspar Rivera-Salgado
Immigration, Latinos in the United States, U.S.-Mexico relations, race relations.
Janna Shadduck-Hernández
Labor and workplace education, community-based education/ popular education, community service-learning, gender issues, immigration and undocumented migration, undocumented students, low-wage working families and K-12 education in Los Angeles, qualitative research methods and field research, arts activism: labor, immigration, sexuality and LGBTQ issues, latino community issues: education, higher education, community development.
Lola Smallwood Cuevas
African American workers in Los Angeles and strategic labor and community alliances.
Kent Wong
Immigrant workers, Asian American workers, undocumented students, contemporary union issues.
