Department of Sociology

Koji Chavez’s research is broadly focused on gender and racial inequalities in the labor market and in the workplace. Much of his research centers specifically on discrimination in the hiring process and relies on quantitative methods to understand trends in discrimination and qualitative methods to understand how and why such trends occur. In one strand of his current research, he and his coauthors use field experiments and in-depth interviews to develop a theory of diversity commodification which explains how the corporate drive to diversify the workforce affects patterns of gender and racial discrimination in software engineering hiring. Koji also enjoys teaching courses on the sociology of work, race and ethnicity, and research design.

Koji Chavez received his BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University before becoming an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University.