Jody Agius Vallejo is Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity and Director of Graduate Studies. She is also Associate Director of USC Equity Research Institute and past-Chair of the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association. She also co-edits the USC Equity Research Institute Blog.

Professor Agius Vallejo specializes in immigrant integration and mobility, the minoritized middle and upper classes, and racial/ethnic inequality in the United States; her research challenges and improves existing theories of immigrant integration, race/ethnicity, and economic sociology.

Her book, “Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican-American Middle Class,” (Stanford University Press 2012) examines patterns of mobility and socioeconomic incorporation among the Mexican-origin middle class in Southern California. Her newest project establishes a new line of research as it is the first study of Latino elites. Her book, The Latino Elite: Entrepreneurship, Community, and Mobility (under contract with University of California Press), is a study of middle-class and professional Latino entrepreneurs in Los Angeles. Building on theories of ethnic entrepreneurship, assimilation, racial/ethnic identification, and civic engagement, this research has been published in Social Problems, Ethnic and Racial Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, Compare, and Gender, Work, and Organization.

In 2023, she received the Award for Public Sociology in International Migration from the ASA Section on International Migration. Also in 2023, she, along with co-author Stephanie Canizales, received the 2023 Oliver Cromwell Cox Article Award from the ASA Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities for their paper, “Ethnoracial Capitalism and the Limits of Ethnic Solidarity,” published in Social Problems. She has received two USC Provost Mentoring Awards for mentoring graduate (2022) and undergraduate students (2010), as well as the USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Junior Faculty Award for Research, Teaching, and Service (2012).