I am an economic sociologist and associate professor at UC Merced where I co-founded the Higher Education, Race, and the Economy (HERE) Lab.

I investigates the power of elites in politics and the economy, as well as policy and organizational strategies to rebalance power and wealth towards ordinary people. My book, Bankers in the Ivory Tower (University of Chicago Press, 2022), is about the relationship between financialization, inequalities in higher education, and the rise of private equity and hedge fund investors among US billionaires. The book won the Pierre Bourdieu best book award from the American Sociological Association.

My ongoing research examines how billionaires from finance and from big tech adopted more oligarchical roles in US politics.

My writing and research has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, TIME, Newsweek, and elsewhere.

My academic work has been published in American Sociological Review, Review of Financial Studies, Social Forces, Socio-Economic Review, Sociology of Education, Politics & Society, Research in Higher Education, Sociological Compass, and Socius.

My research uses data carpentry to digitize, link, and construct original data for measuring inequalities in the resources and activities of elites and less powerful social groups. With my collaborators at the HERE Lab, I publish code and data from this work at the Higher Ed Data Hub.

My newsletter weaves together economic sociology, political economy, data visualization, open science methodology, and my explorations of self. I do most of my thinking in the mountains, preferably while backcountry skiing.

What is Axis of Oligarchy

This is my newsletter for trying to understand and explain how Wall Street and Big Tech gained so much wealth and power in America. As a backcountry skier and runner, I am drawn to the multiple perspectives one gains when navigating through forests, climbing mountains, or sitting atop a peak.

What You Can Expect

I only plan to send you something when I think it’s worth sharing with you. I’m hoping this will be around once a month. We’ll see. I will try to confine what I write to areas where I really have expertise — economic sociology, financiers, elites, universities, open science methods, data visualization, and my own social experiences, including a dash of backcountry skiing.

I will probably combine multiple topics or pieces of news in a single newsletter so as to spare your in-box.

I’d Love to Hear from You

If you have reactions to anything I share, I’d love to hear back from you. I think you can just hit reply. Please also feel free to send me anything you write, read, or make that you think I’d be interested in. When it’s a great fit, I may include it in the news letter. Please also let me know if there’s anything you’d like to me to devote more attention to in the newsletter.

There’s no need to pay for this newsletter. I don’t plan to do paid content. But you’re welcome to chip in to support me, especially if Trump gets the University of California to eliminate my job.

If all this isn’t a match for you, and you need to unsubscribe, I totally get it. Either way, thanks for considering whether to join this experiment with me.