Isabel García Valdivia

Isabel García Valdivia is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon, Eugene, specializing in immigration, race and ethnicity, social stratification, and life course/aging studies.

Her academic credentials include:

• Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley
• B.A. in Chicanx/Latinx Studies and Sociology from Pomona College

Dr. García Valdivia employs qualitative and mixed-methods approaches to examine immigrant families across the life course, with dual research foci: (1) How immigration status and policies shape experiences from young adulthood to late life, including the development of the "life course illegality" conceptual model; and (2) Immigration's impact on family dynamics, particularly through the lens of "legal power" in mixed-status households where citizen children mediate parental legal vulnerabilities.

Her recent work demonstrates how fear of deportation evolves across the life span, with 2025 research revealing three key mitigation mechanisms for older undocumented immigrants: embodiment of illegality, life transitions, and temporal morality. This scholarship bridges migrant illegality studies with life course theory to explain contextual variations in immigration enforcement impacts.

She has received significant recognition:

• Student Paper Award from Society for the Study of Social Problems
• Student Paper Award from American Sociological Association
• UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship
• Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship

Research funding includes major grants from the National Science Foundation, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and Blum Center at UC Santa Barbara. Current collaborative projects investigate immigrant graduate students' academic experiences and workforce integration. She maintains active affiliations with Brown University's Population Studies and Training Center and ISRP research team.