Faculty

MA Student Christina Sparrock will participate in a panel this evening, May 21 at 6 p.m. on alternative mental health crisis responses. People may attend via zoom (register here) for a discussion of a joint report, “Self-Determination is the Pathway to Liberation”: Alternative Mental Health Crisis Response in the United States, by New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Racial and Disability Justice at UCLA School of Law.

Distinguished Lecturer in Labor Studies Ellen Dichner is a labor lawyer with deep experience representing workers and unions. Prior to joining the SLU faculty, she served as Chief Counsel to the Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board in Washington during the Obama administration.

Professor of Labor Studies Penny Lewis is union through and through. Lewis is one of the original full-time faculty members of the School of Labor and Urban Studies, and worked at its predecessor, the Joseph S. Murphy Institute, beginning in 2009.

The first time that Assistant Professor of Labor Studies Cameron Black set foot in New York City was when he moved across the country to join the SLU faculty for the 2023-2024 academic year.

The SLU Urban Studies faculty added two new members this fall, with the arrival of Assistant Professor Samantha Agarwal and Distinguished Lecturer Puya Gerami. They both will specialize in the Leadership for Democracy and Social Justice program.

Samantha Agarwal was an invited panelist at the Engaging Stuart Hall In/From the Global South Symposium at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, October 29-31. She participated in the 2025 American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) Dissertation-to-Book Workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on October 22.

Sofya Aptekar published “Indebted Heroes: Debt Extraction and Military Labor in the United States” in South Atlantic Quarterly and co-authored “For Collective Liberation: Anticapitalism in the Migrant Justice Movement” for the Spring 2025 edition of Spectre …

Associate Professor of Urban Studies Kafui Attoh is the longest-serving professor in his department …

The transportation industry has seen rapid technological change over the past decade, much of which has been enabled by the advancement and integration of artificial intelligence (AI) …