Chiara Galli

Chiara Galli is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Comparative Human Development. She is on leave during the 2025-26 academic year. Her research focuses on international migration, with expertise in child and youth migration, asylum systems, and immigration policy, employing ethnographic methods and legal analysis.

• Education: PhD in Sociology (UCLA, 2020); Postdoctoral Fellow (Cornell, 2020-2022)

Her work examines how immigration laws shape migrant lives, the role of NGOs in migration management, and the unique legal status of children in asylum processes. Her book Precarious Protections: Unaccompanied Minors Seeking Asylum in the US (2023) is an ethnography of Central American minors navigating the US asylum system over six years.

Current research includes: (1) analyzing legal representation gaps for unaccompanied minors in immigration courts (funded by the American Bar Foundation with Tatiana Padilla); and (2) studying the reception of Venezuelan asylum-seekers in Chicago (funded by the Russell Sage Foundation). Publications span journals like Social Problems, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Journal of Borderlands Studies.

Scientific Awards

• Pacific Sociological Association Distinguished Scholarship Award (2024)
• ASA Children and Youth Section Outstanding Scholarly Contribution Award (2024)
• Midwest Sociological Society Distinguished Book Award (2025)
• ASA Latina/o Sociology Section Best Book Award (2025)
• ASA International Migration Section Best Book Award Honorable Mention (2025)
• Juan E. Méndez Book Award Finalist (2025)

Galli's work has received funding from the National Science Foundation, American Bar Foundation, and Russell Sage Foundation. She previously worked as a policy analyst for the Italian National Contact Point of the European Migration Network.