I am assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, studying families and the state systems and policies that affect them. My research and teaching interests include poverty, inequality, social policy, children and youth, education, and family life. My first book, Investigating Families: Motherhood in the Shadow of Child Protective Services, is being published by Princeton University Press in 2023.
My work has been supported by the Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard, the Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-Being, the Julius B. Richmond Fellowship at the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
I received my Ph.D. in sociology and social policy from Harvard University and was previously at Georgia Tech’s School of History and Sociology. Before beginning my doctoral studies, I contributed to multi-method research on community college reforms and worked on impact litigation to reform child welfare systems. I have also advocated for youth in foster care and assisted self-represented litigants in housing and family law clinics.
Kelley Fong 