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David FitzGerald

Theodore E. Gildred Chair in U.S.-Mexican Relations, Professor of Sociology, and Co-Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego

David FitzGerald’s research program aims to understand the laws and policies regulating international migration as a total system of interactions among actors in countries of origin and destination. He explains how and why legal norms are diffused, the social origins of policy variation across time and place, and how the application of policy is experienced by actors in daily life. FitzGerald co-directs the San Diego hub of the Scholars Strategy Network and was awarded the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) International Migration Section “Award for Public Sociology” in 2013. His co-authored book, Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas (Harvard 2014), won “best book” awards from the ASA International Migration Section, ASA Political Sociology Section, and American Political Science Association (APSA) Migration and Citizenship Section in 2015.

Experience

  • –present
    Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego