Research Interests: Ethnography, urban sociology; higher education; urban poverty; ethnoracial inequality; social theory; qualitative methods.

Aaron Brennen Benavidez is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. His research examines institutional and city-level factors shaping community college selection, experience, and persistence. A Harvard Inequality and Social Policy Doctoral Fellow and Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative (HMUI) Doctoral Fellow, Aaron has been supported by the GSAS Division of Social Sciences and the Boston Area Research Initiative (BARI).

Aaron was Founding Doctoral Coordinator for the Contemporary Ethnography and Inequality Workshop and is currently an Affiliate of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University.

In 2018, Aaron won the Derek C. Bok Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching of Undergraduates, given once each academic year to the five most outstanding doctoral instructors of more than 2,000 Teaching Fellows throughout the university. In 2021, Aaron was also nominated for the Star Family Prize for Excellence in Advising at Harvard University. This summer, Aaron was selected as Faculty for the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers (IRT), an organization empowering underrepresented young scholars to become future university professors and administrators in the field of education.

In addition to his research program bridging higher education and urban inequality literatures, Aaron was Founder and President of the Harvard GSAS Latinx Student Association; former Vice President of External Affairs and Vice President of Finance of the Harvard LGBTQ @GSAS Association; former Vice President of Academic Affairs and Emeritus for the Du Bois Graduate Society; and continuing Sociology Department Representative and Member of the Funding Committee for the GSAS Graduate Student Council (GSC), among other leadership positions at Harvard University.

Aaron is an early advocate for universal voting rights and accessibility for all GSAS doctoral students in electing executive leaders to the GSAS Graduate Student Council.

Aaron earned a B.A. in Sociology and a B.A. in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley, with highest honors. He also holds ten A.A. degrees from Sacramento City College, and an A.M. in Sociology with a Secondary Field in Anthropology from Harvard University.

Previous Degrees:
Harvard University, Sociology, A.M.
University of California, Berkeley, Rhetoric, B.A.
University of California, Berkeley, Sociology, B.A.