Research Interests: Immigration; law; punishment; gender and sexuality; social policy; qualitative methods 

Lilly Yu is a PhD student in Sociology & Social Policy. Her research broadly focuses on the sociology of immigration, punishment, and social policy. She is currently studying how institutional and organizational actors make decisions at the intersection of immigration policy and crime victimization.

Prior to beginning her PhD, Lilly was a researcher in the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center for four years, where she worked on a wide portfolio of studies in partnership with government agencies, practitioners, and community-based organizations.Her research focused on crime victimization and victim services and the justice-involvement of young people in a variety of settings and interventions. She also extensively studied human trafficking, including its investigation and prosecution, service delivery for human trafficking survivors, the criminalization of trafficking survivors, and trafficking survivors’ perceptions of justice.

Previous Degrees:
BA, Sociology, with a minor in the program in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities, Rice University