Biography
28 April to 21 June 2025
Jane Lilly López utilizes ethnographic research methods to examine the intersections of migration, law, family, and community in everyday life. In her book Unauthorized Love: Mixed-Citizenship Couples Negotiating Intimacy, Immigration, and the State, she explores the effects of US immigration law on mixed-citizenship families living within and outside the United States. Through this research, she demonstrates that (non)citizenship is experienced at individual and familial levels, with direct consequences for noncitizens, citizens, their families, and the nation-states in which they reside. Dr. López's current book project explores how local social and cultural contexts shape immigrant, refugee, and native-born residents' integration and sense of belonging.
Dr. López holds PhD and MA degrees in Sociology from the University of California–San Diego, an MSc in Evidence-Based Social Work from the University of Oxford, and a BA in Urban Studies from Stanford University.