​Daisy Verduzco Reyes, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced. Her research centers Latinx populations, including mothers-daughter relationships, undergraduate students, college graduates, and student loan borrowers.

​

She is the author of Learning to Be Latino: How Colleges Shape Identity Politics which was covered in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed and the American Journal of Sociology. She currently leads a long-term study of college-educated Latino millennials, exploring how they navigate upward mobility, student debt, family obligations, and the pursuit of the American Dream. At its core, this work asks a simple question: what does it mean to build a better life for yourself while staying connected to the people and communities that helped you get there?

​

Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. She has appeared on both radio and television on MSNBC, Univision and NPR. Reyes’s research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation.

​

A first-generation college graduate and daughter of Mexican immigrants, Reyes was raised on the east side of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. She earned her BA in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and her MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Irvine.