Professor Zulema Valdez's research interests center on the emergence, persistence, and reproduction of social inequality in the United States, with a focus on the labor market, higher education, and the environment. Through an intersectional lens, she examines entrepreneurs and small business owners in the highly stratified American economy, undocumented students in higher education, and rural communities in the context of a changing climate.
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 Institutes of Health and the 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; and Entrepreneurs and the Search for the American Dream. She has also edited an anthology, Beyond Black and White: A Reader on Contemporary Race Relations, several special issue journals, and has authored dozens of peer-reviewed articles.
Professor Valdez served as Associate Vice Chancellor from 2023-2025. Prior to this appointment, she served as Associate Vice Provost of Academic Personnel 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 Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Sociology, she oversaw recruitment, admissions, and program assessment for graduate programs in public health and sociology. She led or co-led several grants sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the UC Office of the President, totaling over $1.5 million to date.
Professor Valdez grew up in the Central Valley and is a proud first-generation college student, community college transfer student, and graduate of UCLA.