Michele Cadigan

Michele Cadigan is a PhD candidate of Sociology at the University of Washington and a former National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She was a former Ronald E. McNair Scholar at California State University, Long Beach where she graduated with a dual degree in Sociology and Chicano/a and Latino/a Studies with a minor in Political Science. Prior to pursuing her graduate studies, Cadigan was a Research Associate at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in the Education Research Program where she worked on several studies including the Study of California’s Transitional Kindergarten Program, Hewlett-Packard Study of Deeper Learning, and the Implementation Study of Hawaii’s Race to the Top Ed Reforms.

Cadigan’s current work brings together theoretical frameworks from economic sociology, racial capitalism, critical race theory, and criminal legal research to examine the complex relationship between markets and the criminal legal system, paying particular attention to how this relationship both shapes and is shaped by race and ethnicity. Her dissertation, specifically, compares state-sanctioned recreational cannabis markets in several U.S. cities to examine how boundaries between criminal and legal are redrawn and how this in turn transforms market spaces and structures racial equity and justice.

Her work has appeared in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Science, and the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice and her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the Addictions, Drugs, and Alcohol Institute (ADAI), the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies (HBCLS), and the Center for Demography and Ecology (CSDE).

When she’s not working, Cadigan loves spending time with her two mini-dachshunds, catching an SF Giants or Golden State Warriors game on TV, or kicking back around a campfire.