Sarah Mason

Graduate Student Researcher

Sarah is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Her dissertation examines the relationship between the labor process and the progression and outcome of strike action in higher education.

Sarah also researches and writes on app-based work and contemporary left-wing political movements in the United States.

Her writing has appeared in the New Left Review, Logic Magazine, the Guardian, New Politics, Notes from Below, and more.

Sarah is a union steward in UAW 2865 and volunteer organizer with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.

Vicente Vega

Administrative Research Coordinator

Vicente graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2015 majoring in Business Management Economics.

During his time as a labor organizer at SEIU Local 2015, he represented long term caregivers in California. 

He was also a union rep with Pacific Northwest Staff Union and an executive board member with the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council.

Veronica Hamilton

Graduate Student Researcher

Veronica is a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology and a graduate student researcher for the Center for Labor and Community, working on the young workers survey.

Veronica’s research explores objectification of low-wage workers in the service industry and the psychological consequences of dehumanizing treatment at work. Her dissertation assesses working conditions at Starbucks and unionization as a possible humanization process.

Veronica is a delegate to the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council for UAW 2865 and has previously served as the Santa Cruz unit chair for UAW 2865.

Teresa Ghilarducci

Research Associate

Teresa Ghilarducci is a labor economist and nationally recognized expert in older worker labor markets and retirement security. She is the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Chair of Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research and Director of the Schwartz Chair of Economic Policy Analysis. Her recent book from University of Chicago Press – Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy – unpacks the economic myths about the positive effects on health, wealth, and productivity of working longer. She is the author of 5 other books, and coauthor and editor of 3 others. She has published over 75 refereed journal articles; testified in Congress over 10 times and was appointed by the governors of California and Indiana and one US  President to serve on advisory boards. Federal courts appointed her an independent trustee for trust funds covering members of the United Autoworkers and United Steelworkers unions. 

She has a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and was Research Associate at the Labor Center  at UC Berkeley . Before coming to The New School in 2008, taught for 25 years at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend Indiana.

Darío León

Research and Community Coordinator

Darío Leon brings deep experience as a community organizer in California to his role at the UC Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation and UC Santa Cruz Campus + Community. He grew up in Chico, CA to farm working parents who immigrated from the state of Guanajuato, México. At a young age, Darío also worked on the orchards where he grew up working side by side with family members. Darío is an alum of UC Santa Cruz. His work in strengthening communities spans over 17 years of experience engaging with diverse neighborhoods and cities throughout the state of California.