Professor Valdez's research interests center on the emergence, persistence, and reproduction of social inequality and stratification in the United States, particularly in institutions such as the labor market, higher education, and neighborhoods. She is an expert in the study of undocumented students in higher education, minoritized entrepreneurship, and health disparities in low-resource communities; a program of research that she approaches through an intersectional lens. Professor Valdez has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the National Poverty Center and the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, as well as grants from the National Institute for Health and NSF/American Sociological Association. She is the author of three books: Family Legal Vulnerability: How Immigration Policy Shapes the Lives of Latino College Students (forthcoming 2026); The New Entrepreneurs: How Race, Class, and Gender Shape American Enterprise; Entrepreneurs and the Search for the American Dream. She has edited an anthology, Beyond Black and White: A Reader on Contemporary Race Relations, several special issue journals, and has authored dozens of articles.
Professor Zulema Valdez served as Associate Vice Chancellor from 2023-2025. Prior to this appointment, she served as Associate Vice Provost of Academic Personnel, a position she held from 2018 to 2023. In these roles she oversaw faculty development and diversity initiatives aimed at the recruitment, hiring, and retention of faculty, and developed processes related to formal and informal conflict resolution and building a healthy campus climate. She served as an ex-officio member of the Academic Senate Committee on Diversity and Equity and the Committee on Faculty Welfare and Academic Freedom. As past Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Sociology, she oversaw the recruitment, admissions, and program assessment for graduate programs in public health and sociology. She led/co-led several grants sponsored by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and UCOP’s Advancing Faculty Diversity, totaling over 1.5M to date.
Professor Valdez grew up in the Central Valley. She is a proud first-generation college student, community college transfer student, and graduate of UCLA.