Biography

Dezerae Reyes is a Sociology Ph.D. student from San Antonio, Texas. She completed her master’s in Sociology at Texas State University, where she focused on racial exclusion in urban nightlife. Her research interests revolve around race and space, especially in progressive and gentrifying urban areas. Dezerae’s dissertation expands on this connection by addressing mobility and transportation inequities. Her work focuses on how mobility and transportation affect access to urban space, community participation, and essential resources. As a qualitative researcher, her goal is to capture the lived experiences of how racism, classism, and sexism are produced through mobility and transportation barriers. In her future career, she aspires to use ethnographic methods to study race and mobility, and to explore who has ‘rights to the city’ in gentrifying and progressive cities across the U.S. Dezerae’s interest in mobility is influenced by her current role as a graduate student research assistant at the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. She has collaborated on research projects with the Federal Highway Administration and other agencies to address transportation and mobility inequities. Finally, beyond academia, she is an avid runner and relishes spending time in nature.