Panellist: Zakiya Luna

Zakiya Luna is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholar at Washington University in Saint Louis. Her research, teaching and community work focus on social movements, reproduction, human rights and intersectionality. She has published multiple peer-reviewed articles and chapters and secured multiple grants including from the National Science Foundation. Her research on the reproductive justice movement includes the book Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice (NYU Press), which was included on the Oprah Daily list “The 12 Books You Need to Read Post the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade Smackdown.” She is coeditor of Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis (Routledge) with Whitney Laster Pirtle. Her other writing includes contribution to Ms. and Refinery 29. Professor Luna earned a joint PhD in Sociology and Women’s Studies from University of Michigan, where she also earned a Master of Social Work. She was a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley affiliated with the Departments of Gender and Women's Studies, Sociology and the Center for the Study of Law and Society. She was hosted by the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at Berkeley Law, which she accidentally helped co-found (long story). She was also the Mellon Sawyer Seminar Human Rights Postdoc at University of Wisconsin, a Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellow and member of inaugural cohort (2019) of Society of Family Planning Changemakers in Family Planning. She was recently named the 2023 Distinguished Feminist Lecturer Award by Sociologists for Women in Society and the inaugural recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Early Career Award for Contribution to Social Movements Scholarship.