Inequality researcher Ellis Monk hopes to ‘nurture and inspire’ young scholars
This article is part of a series introducing new faculty members. Ellis Monk grew up outside Detroit in the home of two socially conscious parents, and got his Ph.D. at University of California at Berkeley. He arrives at Harvard as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology with a focus on social inequality through a comparative global lens, with particular attention to race in the United States and Brazil. A faculty associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Monk is also interested in the sociology of the body and geometric data analysis. Q&A Ellis Monk GAZETTE: How does your background inform your work? MONK: I was fortunate to have had the University of Michigan in my backyard for undergrad. I was a late decider, but I eventually took two sociology courses late in my sophomore year — one on colonialism and one on race. My dad grew up during Jim Crow. Racial inequality and social issues were...