(Sociology, June 2000)
Thesis Title: Negotiating Black Identities: The Construction and Use of Social Boundaries Among Middle-Class Black Suburbanites
Committee: Christopher Winship (Chair), Mary C. Waters, Lawrence D. Bobo, Gwendolyn Dordick
Initial Placement: Assistant Professor, Emory University
Current Position: Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan

Karyn Lacy is associate professor of sociology and African American studies at the University of Michigan. She earned her PhD from Harvard University, is a Ford Fellow, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Her work focuses on race relations, residential segregation, identity, parental socialization, social stratification, and suburban culture. Her book Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class (University of California Press) received the Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, and she is a contributing writer to media outlets including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Lacy's current work explores the construction and reproduction of racial and class-based identities among members of an elite children's organization.