Dr. Theresa Rocha Beardall is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington and a faculty affiliate in the Law, Societies, and Program, the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, and the Center for Human Rights. Her research bridges the areas of race, law, inequality, policing, family policing, indigeneity, and tribal sovereignty. Her scholarship is motivated by a commitment to uncover how law, legal institutions, and legal actors marginalize select racial groups and respond proactively to help reduce and reverse these systemic inequalities. Dr. Rocha Beardall's research has appeared recently in Criminology, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, the American Educational Research Journal, and the Columbia Journal of Race and Law, among other venues. She is currently working on her first book examining the political economy of policing in race-class subjugated communities and conducting a three-year study funded by the William T. Grant Foundation exploring how tribal sovereignty can be leveraged to protect Native youth and families in the child welfare system. Dr. Rocha Beardall completed her Ph.D. in Sociology at Cornell University in 2019 and her J.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2014.
Keywords: Race, law, policing, family policing, indigeneity, tribal sovereignty