I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at American University.
My work is motivated by novel and enduring questions in sociology: How do people create collective meaning in institutional settings? How do these meanings inform action? What role does meaning making play in facilitating or inhibiting racial inequality?
I am currently working on my first book, Reckoning with Race, an ethnography of a community health center during the pandemic and racial reckonings from 2020-2021. You can see my publications here.
Ongoing streams of research study: 1) race in the college essay production process after the federal ban on race-conscious admissions, 2) how organizations make decisions around sustainable procurement, including social criteria (e.g., purchasing from minority-owned businesses), and 3) how officials at the U.S. census produced racial meanings over time.
My research is funded by the Antiracist Research and Policy Center, Russell Sage Foundation, Center for Environment, Equity, and Community (CECE), National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Mellon Foundation.
I have also done work on immigrant immobility, the multiracial population in the U.S., and a bottle and can redemption center frequented by unhoused workers. By investigating taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of race, organizations, and identity, my research is united in its aim to strengthen institutional efforts to combat inequality.
Prior to receiving my PhD from NYU, I worked as a Policy Fellow studying racial disparities at Connecticut Voices for Children, a research and advocacy center. I remain interested in policy and other ways to practice public sociology, including teaching and mentoring.
You can reach me at iverson [at] american.edu