Zakiya T. Luna

Zakiya T. Luna is an Associate Professor and Dean's Distinguished Professorial Scholar in the Department of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis. Her academic career spans multiple prestigious institutions including the University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Wisconsin, and UC Berkeley, where she was a UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with Gender and Women's Studies, Sociology, and the Center for the Study of Law and Society.

Dr. Luna's research and teaching focus on critical areas of social justice:

• Social movements and collective action
• Reproductive justice and rights
• Intersectionality theory and practice
• Human rights frameworks in domestic contexts
• Women of color feminism

Her influential book "Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice" was named by Oprah Daily as one of "The 12 Books You Need to Read Post the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade Smackdown." This work examines how women of color activists transformed reproductive rights into a human rights framework through the SisterSong organization. She has also co-edited "Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis" and served as lead author of the Reproductive Justice review article in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.

Dr. Luna's scholarly contributions demonstrate consistent focus on how marginalized communities frame their struggles within broader social justice movements, with particular attention to how reproductive justice has evolved as a framework that centers the experiences of women of color. Her work bridges academic theory with activist practice, examining both the possibilities and limitations of rights-based approaches to social change.

Among her professional recognitions:

• Dean's Distinguished Professorial Scholar
• UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow
• Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellow
• CoreAlign Generative Fellow (Blaze Cohort)

Dr. Luna teaches courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels on social movements, intersectionality, and reproduction. She has been actively involved in community work related to reproductive justice and was co-creator and former co-editor of the University of California Press book series "Reproductive Justice: A New Vision for the 21st Century." Her work with the Humane Resources Innovation Lab focused on how reproductive justice movement organizations can cultivate practices that recognize people's whole selves beyond just workplace contexts.