Welcome and greetings!
I’m an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. I earned my Ph.D. in Sociology at Cornell University in 2019 and my J.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2014.
My research examines how the United States’ settler colonial foundations actively shape, legitimize, and reproduce state violence through its core institutions. Central to this system is the legal contract—an instrument that can be used to exclude, marginalize, and sustain racial subjugation. My work examines how these agreements structure power and control across three interconnected domains: 1) the criminal legal system, 2) the child welfare system, and 3) tribal-federal government relations, particularly in policing and family regulation.
In one research thread, I critically examine urban policing and police accountability through the intersecting lenses of race, class, and labor. I focus on how police unions, mayors, and other power elites allow contract language to limit the legal and social recourse available to affected communities. My ongoing research also investigates how national police unions and grassroots movements to defund and abolish the police are reshaping the future of law enforcement in the U.S.
My second thread expands my meso-level analysis on race, law, and organizations to explore how settler colonialism threatens tribal sovereignty. By studying treaties as legal contracts, I reveal how federal efforts to erode Native self-determination undermine the social, political, and legal status of Native children and families through the child welfare system. My current work also examines how similar settler strategies play out in U.S. courts, federal land claims, higher education, and tribal business partnerships. Ultimately, my research uncovers how the enduring effects of settler colonialism disproportionately funnel Native communities into the intersecting harms of the criminal legal and child welfare systems.
None of this work would be possible without those who endure and resist everyday violence. I honor their resilience by dedicating myself to publicly engaged scholarship, fostering meaningful and reciprocal community partnerships, and translating my research into policy interventions that challenge the systemic inequalities my work exposes.
My published work can be found in high-impact interdisciplinary journals, such as Criminology, Punishment & Society, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, the Columbia Journal of Race and Law, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Journal. Additionally, my work has been recognized with generous funding from the Ford Foundation (2023-2024), the William T. Grant Foundation (2021-2024), and the Spencer Foundation (2021-2022). I am especially honored to have received the international Law and Society Association’s John Hope Franklin Article Prize (2022) and the American Sociological Association’s Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Distinguished Early Career Award (2022).
CONTACT
I collaborate with scholars, students, politicians, journalists, and community organizers on various projects about policing, family policing, and social inequality.
I also respond to requests for speaking engagements and expert witness services.
If setting up a time to meet on such issues would be helpful, please feel free to get in touch at tyrb@uw.edu.