Sofya Aptekar

Sofya Aptekar is Associate Professor of Urban Studies at the School of Labor and Urban Studies. She is a sociologist by training who has long navigated interdisciplinary waters. Her recent work engages with the field of critical migration studies, focusing on immigrant workers in the US military in Green Card Soldier (MIT, 2023) and the experience of undocumented young adults in Beyond Dreamers (coauthored with Amy Hsin, in process), as well as analyzing anticapitalist strands in the migrant justice movement. With a team of scholar-organizers, she wrote an activist manual for fighting institutional debt, Lend and Rule (Common Notions, 2024). In addition to her first book, The Road to Citizenship (Rutgers, 2015), Sofya has published scholarly articles on gentrification, public space, collective memory, and alternatives to capitalism, as well as op-eds, interviews, and other public-facing pieces. She serves as the co-chair of the Graduate Center chapter of the Professional Staff Congress.