2021-22 Visitors and Affiliates
Sarita Gupta
Sarita Gupta is the Wayne Morse Chair for 2021-22. She is the Vice President for U.S. Programs at the Ford Foundation where, until recently, she directed The Future of Work(ers) Program. Gupta joined the Ford Foundation in 2019 with more than 20 years of experience working to expand people’s ability to come together to improve their workplaces, their communities, and their lives by creating solutions to the problems they face. She has deep expertise in policy advocacy, organizing, and building partnerships across the workers’ rights and care movements, having served as the executive director of Jobs With Justice and codirector of Caring Across Generations. She is a nationally recognized expert on the economic, labor, and political issues affecting working people, and is widely acknowledged as a key leader and strategist in the progressive movement.
Maria Fernanda Escallón
Maria Fernanda Escallón is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. She is originally from Bogotá, Colombia, where she completed her BA and MA in Anthropology and Archaeology at the Universidad de Los Andes. She also holds an MA (2009) and PhD (2016) in Anthropology from Stanford University. Her work focuses on cultural heritage, race, diversity politics, ethnicity, and inequality in Latin America.
Claire Herbert
Claire Herbert is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oregon. She received her B.S. in Sociology and Political Science from University of Oregon in 2006, and her Ph.D in Sociology from University of Michigan in 2016. She was an assistant professor of sociology at Drexel University for three years before joining the Sociology Department at University of Oregon. Her research focuses on law, housing, incarceration, and urban sociology.
Katie Temple
Katie Temple is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at UO. Her research project, “Corporate Mindfulness and Meditation: Making Sense of Eastern Spirituality in the Workplace” examines how traditional Buddhist practices like mindfulness have emerged as a new cultural model for workplace relations. Through in-depth interviews, it will investigate the emergent relationships between management, human resources personnel, employees and spiritual instructors in defining and making sense of workplace problems.
Lola Loustaunau
Lola Loustaunau is a graduate student in the UO Department of Sociology. Her research project, “The Hands That Feed Us: Analyzing the Impacts of COVID-19 on Immigrant Food Processing Workers," examines how the pandemic has affected migrant workers’ economic stability, emotional health, family well-being, and carework demands in the Pacific Northwest. It also considers cases of collective organizing as workers navigate assistance programs to access benefits, demand increased protections in their workplaces, and struggle for community survival.
Timothy Herrera
Timothy Herrera is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology. His research project, “Carework as Well-being: Latinx Immigrant Community Gardening and Practices of Hope and Support," focuses on community-based agriculture and the cultivation of connection, care, and exchange. Using fieldwork at seven community garden sites in Lane County as a basis, it examines the experiences of multigenerational immigrant families in Oregon engaged in preserving traditional foodways through community gardening.