email: chughes@coloradocollege.edu

I am currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado College. I was recently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Rice University. I received my PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago, a Master's in Public Health from Temple University, and a Bachelor's in Sociology from New College of Florida.

My current book project, Privacy, Poverty, and Punishment: How Surveillance in the Social Safety Net Penalizes Poor Black Mothers (under contract with University of California Press), examines how low-income, Black mothers in Houston, Texas, navigate privacy when they seek poverty assistance from an increasingly surveillance-centered safety net. You can read more about the book here. 

My work is driven by a central commitment to understanding the causes and consequences of social inequality and how people make sense of and respond to structural disadvantage. My research interests include urban poverty, social inequalities, privacy and surveillance, crime/punishment, and health.