Celeste Watkins-Hayes

Areas of Interest: Urban Poverty; Social Policy; HIV/AIDS; Formal Organizations (non-profit and government); Race, Class, and Gender

Celeste Watkins-Hayes received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University in June 2003. She also holds an M.A. in Sociology from Harvard and a B.A. from Spelman College, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1996. Celeste is Associate Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University and former Chair of the Department of African American Studies. In addition to her faculty appointments, Watkins-Hayes is a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research and Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health.

Watkins-Hayes has published in the areas of sociology, African American Studies, and public policy studies. Her book, The New Welfare Bureaucrats: Entanglements of Race, Class, and Policy Reform (University of Chicago Press, 2009) is an examination of how welfare officers navigate the increasingly tangled political and emotional terrain of their jobs.

Dr. Watkins-Hayes is also principal investigator of The Health, Hardship and Renewal Study, which explores the economic and social survival strategies of women living with HIV/AIDS in the Chicago area (www.hhrstrategies.org). In 2009, she received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Investigator Award and a National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award to conduct this research.

Watkins-Hayes has published numerous articles in journals and edited volumes including The Annual Review of Sociology, Social Problems, and The DuBois Review. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College and the Advisory Board of the Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center.