STEPHANIE ORTIZ

          Curriculum Vitae

Background

Stephanie M. Ortiz is an assistant professor of Sociology at FAU. She joined the department in Fall 2020 after earning her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. Prior to that, she completed a Master's in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University.

Professor Ortiz focuses on how race and gender—as structures of inequality—are created, lived out, and contested in the context of the everyday. Her work thus far has focused on new media spaces. She has published on the construction of gaming culture through trash-talk, how men of color cope with racism in gaming, and how online trolling is a form of identity-based harassment. She is currently completing three papers on racism and sexism across platforms, where she demonstrates the social implications of these inequalities in a supposed colorblind and postfeminist era. This project refines theories of racism and sexism, and sheds light on how domination within online spaces informs inequality in offline social domains.

In the classroom, Professor Ortiz values integrity and strives for intellectual solidarity. As a first-generation, working-class woman of color, her teaching practices acknowledge that social inequalities do not suddenly disappear in the classroom. She aims to help students learn a vocabulary to describe the world around them, develop deeper questions about the inequalities they witness and experience, and realize their power in enacting agency in their lives.

Professor Ortiz enjoys breakfast foods, coffee shops, amateur gardening, and begging her pets for attention.

Personal website: www.stephaniemortiz.com